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It is a good day for Liberty.

Hilary Clinton is eleven months from election day.

Today is the anniversary of the Bill of Rights.

The President of Pakistan has declared martial law. Lawyers are in the streets rioting. This is interesting. American lawyers are outraged over the latest lawyer joke and have resolved to riot. Planning for the riot is becoming involved. It has been decided to send a fact finding team to Pakistan to study the lawyers rioting there. There is a dispute over which group of lawyers will send the team. The International Law committee insists that it should be responsible because of the obvious international aspect. The Urban Law committee insists that it has more experience with riots and it should send the team. The two committees threaten to decide the matter "in the streets", which promises to be a riot over a riot. Live in fear.

I note with some concern that our President Sheila has never promised not to impose martial law. If she did promise not to impose martial law, I would have to wonder what makes her think of it. Either way one must be concerned over her intentions. On the other hand, perhaps imposing martial law on a group of independent, heavily armed individuals might be difficult. Perhaps that was the idea.

Tim Oliver and I have produced a DVD of the legal portion of the License To Carry course. It is a two-disk set lasting a total of 2 hours and 49 minutes. The title is "Missouri Concealed Carry and Self-Defense Law". The set covers everything required for the legal part of the License To Carry course. It will serve as an update for those who have not had a class since the self-defense law changed on 28 August, 2007. It took an entire day to shoot and two days to edit. During the editing they put in the special effects that made me look smart and eloquent. I asked if they could make me look handsome as well, but we did not have that kind of money. Until we are worthy of our own web site they are available at www.learntocarry.com. The set goes for $49.95 plus tax which totals $53.75. Many companies have an “NRA Roundup” in which the price is rounded up to the nearest dollar and the change going to the NRA, we shall be doing something similar rounding up to $54, but the change will go to local groups. Perhaps the NRA owns the copywrite on the concept but I’m sure they will let us use it.

A high school girl called me for a school project. She asked about becoming a lawyer, and asked what sort of preparation she should make. I told her that she should understand people, which she took to mean courses in psychology; I meant nothing of the kind. I advised her to volunteer at shelters for battered women or something of the kind, to know how people act under stress. To learn about people is not necessarily to know people, and law is about how people act in their darkest moments.

A credit card company is demanding evidence that a client charged my services on his credit card. However, they refuse to provide the person's name, only his credit card number. I have explained that I do not represent numbers, only people, and I file records by the client's name. They cannot seem to grasp the idea.

Sergeant-Major Bob was called to jury duty. He was surprised to find that he enjoyed the process, although he never could get them to march in a straight line. A Dutch lawyer visited a local lawyer's meeting and we had to explain what a jury is. She has no concept because no other nation, not even Britain has a jury system quite like ours. The Founding Fathers, many of them lawyers thought that justice was too important to be left to lawyers, and so they guaranteed a jury system. Lawyers are taught that justice is found in books, although today these books are often on computer screens. The founders thought that justice is found in the common sense of twelve people from the community; and so we have juries.

I see that a book promoting atheism is very popular. I am perplexed as to why atheists seek converts. I grasp that certain people just cannot Believe, but what do they get by converting people?

Several recent massacres have brought out the usual suspects to dance in the blood and demand that evil be fought by punishing the innocent. The prohibitionists refuse to recognize that whenever a massacre was stopped, a shooter stopped it. At Columbine a deputy on school duty fired an ineffective long range shot at the killers, and they committed suicide. In Pearl, Mississippi a vice principal ran to his car, retrieved a gun, pointed it at the killer, who promptly surrendered. At Luby’s Cafeteria a police officer fired a random shot into the restaurant, and the killer committed suicide. In Utah a police officer, not affected by the “no guns” sign, drew his off-duty gun and shot the killer. In Washington State a concealed carry holder aimed his gun but did not take the shot because of innocents in his line of fire. This served to draw the killer’s attention, and limit his victims, until police arrived. Most recently in Colorado Springs a killer entered a church, to be met by a petite concealed carry holder. She demanded he surrender, he refused, and that was the last stupid decision he ever made. In each of these cases two things stand out; they took place in supposed “gun free” zones and as soon as an armed citizen confronted the killer, the killer surrendered or died.

Some states are considering a law which makes the owner of “gun free zones” financially responsible for attacks in their zone. If the anti-gun people really believe that these zones make them safer, they will not oppose such laws; we shall see.

A new report says that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program. Iran says that it does. Of course, they may just be trying to intimidate neighboring states. Saddam Hussein ran the same kind of bluff to make neighboring states believe that he had poison gas and germ weapons. We see who he convinced. In the intelligence world nothing can be taken at face value, and in the Middle-East nothing can be taken at face value. Since this is both, there is no telling what is really going on.

Recent killings in “gun free” zones have led local colleges to evaluate their security. It seems that the “first responders” to such an incident will usually not have guns. The commander of one campus security force assures the public that his officers are trained in “verbal judo” to talk their way out of a situation. This seems a good plan to increase the number of casualties. Some students were interviewed to see what they thought about arming security officers. One student said that he would not feel safe around people with guns. This college student is as afraid of security officers as he is killers. It has been repeatedly mentioned that many of the sheep cannot tell the difference between the wolf and the sheep dog. And there is our problem.

Two months ago Kansas City threatened to require every vendor at gun shows to have a City business license. A defense was raised and nothing happened. I have since demanded that the City reveal its intentions in this area. Vendors at the American Royal, City Market, street fairs and other venues are not required to have City licenses and there has been no suggestion that this will change. If the City intends to pick on gun shows it will be in violation of state law. The City may believe itself above the law, but sometimes it is only necessary to raise a defense and the enemy retreats without testing the defense. As always, showing up is at least half the battle; sometimes it is the entire battle.

A student at a trucking school has a License To Carry. Because the school banned guns, he left the gun in his car and the car off the property. At some point the school became aware that he owned a gun and threw him out of the school. This is discrimination, but gun owners are not a protected class. Since this also interferes with his contract to drive trucks for a national company, there is a possibility of a lawsuit for interference with contracts. It may require some devious lawyering, but fortunately I happen to know such a person.

I have been told that the jury instructions committee has been writing a new jury instruction concerning the new Castle Doctrine. It appears that they are trying to insert some limiting elements in the instruction, elements that backtrack from the intent of the law. The NRA has a fund to litigate such things, but it would be better if we did not have to use it.

We have been fat, dumb, and happy for too long. There has been little national legislation and no state legislation that would hurt us, so we have sat back thinking the victory won. These incidents show that the opposition is waiting for any opportunity to harass and abuse us.

You may not know that Dennis, the husband of President Sheila and our First Gentleman, is a member of the Lakota Indian Nation. He is also an FFL. Until about 1976 the Bureau of Indian Affairs prohibited the sale of guns to Indians, at least on the reservation; they have long and paranoid memories at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Now Dennis is selling guns to white people; we’ll see how that works out.

The opposition claims that they have enacted “reasonable” gun laws. Everyone believes their own actions to be “reasonable”. Heinrich Himmler, chief of the nazi SS, organizer of the death camps described himself as “reasonable” and even “merciful”. What the opposition believes is reasonable is to prevent the average citizen from having guns. This represents a fundamental difference between us, we trust the average citizen, and they do not.

As of the start of the New Year, WMSA has not endorsed a presidential candidate. There has been some discussion, and we have decided not to support a certain candidate. This will probably change. There are good candidates for our side. However there is a substantial danger that at some point we must have the “Lesser of Two Evils” discussion, and its inevitable corollary “The Lesser of Two Evils is Still Evil.” I hope that we will get the right candidate, and that he will win. It appears that it will require a great deal of work.

I saw a documentary on African American Medal of Honor recipients, men who had to wait 50 years to have their heroism recognized. One recipient reports that he was reluctant to shoot a German soldier in the back. He had grown up in Wyoming, and that was not the Cowboy Way. But the man had just thrown a grenade at him and there was a war on. Afterwards he rolled the man over, it was the first German he had seen up close. I read about a US Army Ranger at Normandy who aimed at a fleeing German soldier but as he set his sights on the man’s back he felt a terrible pain in his own back, and he could not fire. In the midst of the greatest bloodbath in human history we still follow the Cowboy Way.

This is the 80^th year of the Missouri Sport Shooting Association. This group is preserving the shooting sports for your grandchildren. To join send $20 to PO Box 10170, Columbia Mo 65205 or go to www.missourisportshooting.org. It may do you no good at all, but it will do great things for your grandchildren.

I am reminded that at one time it was illegal to print or preach the Bible in the common language. This was to confine learning to the elite on the theory that the common person would misunderstand and fall into evil doctrines. Today it is said that guns must be confined to the elite, otherwise common people will fall into evil ways. We are the common people and have a different opinion.

We shall overcome.

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