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Zachary Stone (courtesy neveryetmelted.com)

In its editorial explaining its editorial calling for gun confiscation, New York Times editor Andrew Rosenthal revealed that his pistol-packing boss had declared a jihad on American gun rights. “Go ape shit on guns” being the operative instruction. Since coming out of the confiscation closet, the Times has continued its full-on war on Americans’ 2A rights. Just like The Daily Show, the Old Grey Lady sent a newbie to get his handgun license – to prove that the governments [of less enlightened states] are bestowing the “privilege” of carry on unworthy individuals. Guess what? He proved it! Or did he . . .

I’ve lived in Texas all my life, but I’d never touched a gun — they actually scare me. When I arrived at the gun shop to get my license, I didn’t know what to expect, except that there would be training and assessment. The course included no instruction about how to neutralize an active shooter, deal with moving targets, avoid innocent people or manage adrenaline and anxiety.

Some of the things that we did discuss in class left me exasperated.

Instructor: “You can only shoot in self-defense. This license is not for justice, but immediate self-preservation.”

“But what if a man who just attacked me or my wife is running away? I can shoot him, right?” a man asked.

“That would be murder.”

Glad we cleared that up.

And I’m glad Zachary Stone [above] cleared-up any misplaced belief that he approached his concealed carry course with an open mind. That snide, cynical aside typifies the entirety of his op ed piece I’m a Responsible Gun Owner? Seriously? As if the  founder of UT Students Against Guns on Campus had any intention of being objective. As if the Times couldn’t find someone who could be. As if they’d even want to.

I wonder how many Times readers will rise to the bait of this anti-gun rights trolling? How many smug firearms-ignorant upper west side “intellectuals” read this sort of article and shake their head with self-righteous condescension, muttering something about armed barbarians at the gate. Are there really enough of them to keep The Times in business? Like many gun-owning millennials, TTAG reader theOriginalJO knows a hit piece when he reads one.

It says way more about the shortcomings of the author than the implied shortcomings of the Texas permitting system. The idiot shows up for his live-fire without ever having touched a gun and not having the least notion of its mechanical workings. By his own testimony the other participants there had no such problems.

The process he was in was for a concealed carry permit; it was not a remedial gun-handling course. The course is no doubt configured on the assumption that people seeking a CCP have at least some prior experience. What he needed was a week, or more likely a month, a firearms training before getting to this stage, to make up for the years of experience most people bring to the training.

He complains he wasn’t given advanced tactical training, again beyond the scope the process and a very long, expensive training regimen it would be. For that matter, how many LEOs actually get this kind of training before being unleashed on the public?

Aside from the obvious sandbagging, mandatory firearms training is a trojan horse. Pro-gun folks who accept the idea of mandatory training — See? we’re responsible gun owners! — give anti-gun rights statists (yes, a redundant term) exactly what they want: subservience to the state. Simply put, the state giveth, the state can and will taketh away. See how that works? It’s as clear as the Times‘ bias against liberty.

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91 COMMENTS

  1. He obviously passed the shooting section of the test, and the written test or he wouldn’t have gotten a the passing certificate.

    That is all the Republic of Texas cares about. And the 4 hour class obviously gotten the neophyte up the standards established by the laws. Thus the class worked.

    • It’s 4 hours, now? When I took it last, it was something like 12, settled on specifically in the attempt to force 2 days of “training”, with the only goal of making it more difficult to obtain the license. 4 Hours is actually reasonable!

      • They changed it a few years back, and it now requires 4 hours of training instead of the previous 10 hours.

        As someone licensed under the previous 10 hours of training, I wish it was 4 hours because 10 hours was mind numbingly boring.

      • They reduced it to four hours last year. Moreover, renewals no longer even require any class hours. It’s online and you just need to read and acknowledge the new laws.

        • My family did that last year, my mind was positively boggled since I had heard nothing about the change. My son was first, trying to set up a class for his renewal and discovering there was no such thing. Then my bride renewed, and finally my turn. What a happy surprise, and a good direction for law to be travelling.

    • To be fair, though, the shooting portion of that test is stupidly easy, and even I, as much as I favor gun rights, am at least a little uncomfortable with that.

      But the legal portion is fine though.

      • I would have liked it better if the course had been distant to close instead of close to distant. I could see I had passed after the 3 and 7 yard shoots – I have to think that anybody can pass those two – so I used the 15 yard shots to practice acquisition speed. Make people do the 15 first and when they see how poorly they did, they will pay more attention for the 3 and 7.

        I’d also make the course 10-30-10 instead of 20-20-10 or require specific hit percentages for each section.

        • Really? I would remind the other legislators of “shall not be infringed”, then I’d vote to abolish the entire licensing and testing scheme and instead institute constitutional carry. But that’s just me.

      • The proficiency standard in Texas consists of 50 shots at a standard B-27 silhouette target: 20 shots each distances of 3 yards and 7 yards, then 10 shots at 15 yards. Passing score is 70%.

        Consider two facts:

        The overwhelming majority of defensive gun uses entail no shots fired. Of the minority involving shots fired, the majority of those consist of 3 shots or less fired within 3 yards and lasting 3 seconds or less.

        How much more already-unconstitutional proficiency demonstration would you mandate for people beyond the already overkill amount?

        Sheesh, nobody imposes proficiency standards on one’s right to free speech or religion, do they? Let’s face it, reckless and nefarious exercising of speech and religion have occasioned quite a bit more death and injury than any negligent discharges or errant defensive rounds ever have.

  2. I’ll bet this Beta is a Bernie Sanders guy. Maybe he should go up to Vermont and pass their basic test for concealed carry… Oh wait.

    • Well… before you start knocking Bernie think about this… that man has said that firearms owners and people with hunting traditions should be respected. When I heard that, I thought : “Wow. This guy may not be exactly what I want, but at least I can have a reasonable conversation with him.”

      And before you call me a libtard or some other pejorative, I am a gay man – and a gun owner and I carry although my husband does not.

      While I admit someone like Ted Cruz would be great for gun rights, I have a tough time voting for a man who thinks I’m evil because of who I love.

      I think it’s easy to be a single issue voter when you are a white, Christian man and you’ve never felt different or had a desire to kiss a person of the same gender.

      Bernie was on my side back before it was cool.

      • I can see your point, but Sanders is not interested in protecting our rights. He is anti gun, unless it’s a Fudd weapon. He supports the disemboweling of your fifth and second amendment rights as we saw on the third of December. He supports further violation of your 4th amendment rights.

        Both ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders are tyrants in their own right. If you vote for one tyrant over another you’re in a poor place to begin with.

      • Bernie also said on National TV that guns should not be in cities, nobody should have semi autos of any kind & no weapons for self defense.

        I heard it all a few months ago straight from his mouth on meet the press.

      • Nobody gives a crap who you trade crap with. People who are opposed to gay marriage understand correctly that re-defining an institution that has been the foundation of Western Civ should not be done lightly. There will be wide ranging implications and it’s happening already.

        The Left mission is to destroy sexual differences to the point that they find it no problem to allow gender confused male teenagers in High Schools to shower in the girls locker room.

        • allow gender confused male teenagers in High Schools to shower in the girls locker room.
          I don’t think we were gender confused males on the swim team. but we sure did want to shower with the girl’s gymnastic team. There was only a locked door between our locker rooms. One time we all agreed to unlock it and the girls and boys played locker room hockey in our underwear.

        • US citizens lived quite well without the need for permission to marry from the State until shortly after the civil war. If it weren’t for people wanting the State instituting some sort of warped version of morality by trying to dissuade interracial marriage, then we wouldn’t even be arguing over this topic. More laws with unintended consequences that give government another way to tell people how to live their lives are not the answer.

      • What TravisP said. Sanders has already shown that his defending of gun rights goes as far as whatever is politically expedient. I have no love for either side of the isle as leaders for both D’s and R’s have their own views on which rights are worthy of sacrifice. To hell with them all.

      • Don’t be ridiculous. Gay men aren’t allowed to own firearms, just ask Hillary! It’s in the Democratic party laws, as I recall.

        More seriously, I agree with the thrust of your post, the GOP absolutely has to drop its religious crap and run as a reasonable alternative to the free-spending liberals who are bankrupting out country. The party has been hijacked by zealots damn near as looney as the Islamists.

        • Your hatred and bigotry is showing Larry in Texas. “The party has been hijacked by zealots damn near as looney as the Islamists!”

          So have Christians based their teachings on the actions of a mass murdering religious psychopath? So when’s the last time a christian has committed mass murder of someone “disrespecting” the Christ? Chopped the head off of a gay person? Chopped a persons head off if you did not convert to Christianity?” Stoned to death a woman that was raped? Chopped the hand off of a thief? Murdered a christian for converting to another religion? Committed mass murder of other Christians of the “wrong” Christianity? Committed mass murder of helpless men, women, and children in schools, malls and stadiums, All going on today, not just in the mid-east, but just recently in Paris and San Bernadino?

          You sir, to even suggest that current day Christians are anywhere “As Looney as the Islamists” are so consumed with irrational hatred based on nothing but blind indoctrination and bigotry that I am fearful for your soul.

        • My soul is doing just fine, if I were not advancing god’s will it would have stopped me, right? RIGHT? It seems a simple request that religion be removed from government, removing any question of which religion is receiving preference. Why is the tax code affected by religious superstition? Gay marriage, straight marriage, neither should affect the taxes you pay. Wasn’t that easy? One wife, six wives, no difference in your taxes. No kids, 20 kids, no difference. god said that is the way it should be. Work on it! I realize it will take some work, since you seem blind to the tens or hundreds of millions murdered in the name of your religion over the past 5000 years, if you close your eyes it didn’t happen, right?

      • Barry,

        Your comment, “… I have a tough time voting for a man who thinks I’m evil because of who I love.”

        Barry, every single person on our planet (including myself) has serious flaws and thus we are all “evil”. No one is condemning you because you are “evil”. Rather, people reject your behavior and may not be eloquent enough to state it that way.

        Look at it this way. No matter how incredibly intense my feelings of love and/or lust for an 8 year old child may be, I must restrain myself from acting on those feelings. Why? Because it is unnatural and just plain wrong for an adult to pursue an intimate relationship with an 8 year old child. Everyone knows it and virtually everyone admits it. The same applies to intense feelings of love and/or lust for a person of the same gender. It is unnatural and just plain wrong. Everyone knows it deep down. How many people admit it is another question. And while you may claim a right to be intimate with anyone you choose, you don’t have a right to compel other people to embrace your choices and behavior … any more so than I have a right to compel others to embrace my choice to be armed or unarmed or make it a social institution.

        Aside from all of that, the bigger problem is claiming that marriage can include two people of the same gender. For all recorded history, marriage was a contract between a man and a woman to be physically and socially intimate, make a family, and share their lives together. To claim something different turns all of world history on its head. Even more important, it opens the door for anything to be a “marriage” if it gets enough public support or support at the government level. Now someone can fight for the “right” to marry a child — and get benefits from the government for that child. Other possibilities include marrying a parent, sibling, offspring, as well as marrying multiple people and even animals.

        I know you may not agree with all of this. At least recognize that I am making a case to disagree with your unnatural behavior and maintain my right to NOT embrace your behavior. Note that I am NOT condemning you as a person. The very fact that I went to this length to respectfully disagree with you shows that I respect you as a person … as a fellow human being with just as much inherent value and dignity as anyone else.

        • Under what warrant is being gay wrong? What exact moral does it violate? I could agree it is unnatural when looked at from a biological and evolutionary position, but from a moral position how is it wrong? The assumption that “deep down everyone knows its wrong,” Is wrong, and the exact same logic applied when anti gunners claim gun owners all “Have shooting people fantasy’s.” It’s the same lack of logic and evidence of a very broad based assumption.

          Being gay is not the same as being a pedophile. A pedophile involves someone who cannot give consent, being gay involves two people who can consent. False equivalence is false equivalence.

          You use history to define that marriage has always been between man and women, sure, cool, but we don’t live in the past, throughout history slavery was acceptable, down to nearly every major religious text, but we all know that’s pretty terrible. Marriage in the past was done without consent of the woman, so is that acceptable? If marriage was a simple thing in our country then this is debatable, but the fact the government offers benefits to married couples you create a right to be married. Allowing same genders to marry does not magically open up the definition of marriage to include animals, children, or clocks. Marriage is still between two consenting adults, in which even the condition of consent is relatively new.

          You do not have to embrace anyone’s behavior, but a government offering benefits to one group of adults over another group is wrong.

          I honestly believe that government should be completely out of marriage, allowing adults to have their own interpretation of marriage. There should be no additional benefits for married couples from the government, and it should act as a private contract between individuals. The closest thing the government should have to making a marriage ruling is “Can the people being married grant legal consent”

        • TravisP,

          You asked, “Under what warrant is being gay wrong? What exact moral does it violate? I could agree it is unnatural when looked at from a biological and evolutionary position, but from a moral position how is it wrong?”

          Looking back 80 years ago, our nation overwhelmingly agreed that having intimate relationships with a person of the same gender was obviously unnatural and wrong. Today, a larger percentage of the people in our nation (although not necessarily a majority) say it is okay. Which is it? Are homosexual relationships right or wrong? And why is pedophilia wrong? What if 85% of our population and government endorsed pedophilia … would that make it okay? Because that is basically what your arguing: if enough people and government declare something to be okay, then it is okay. I do not agree with that sentiment.

          I believe in objective standards and truths that are self-consistent and timeless and almost universally self-evident. Killing another human being for any other reason than self-defense always has been and always will be murder. Regardless of how much popular support, government support, and rationalization exists for murder, it will always be wrong. I believe the same applies to institution of marriage: it always has been and always will be a contract between a man and a woman for intimacy, procreation, companionship, and family. Period. And I believe homosexual behavior always has been and always will be unnatural and wrong. Have there been times and places where pockets of people endorse and embrace homosexual behavior? Sure. By and large, all peoples of all times and places have rejected homosexual behavior. There is a reason for it.

        • In the paragraph you quoted I never stated because people are okay with it that is okay, but I’ll address the point anyway. 80 years ago institutionalised racism was fine, segregation was fine, the NFA was fine, 10 years later the internment of America citizens without trial was fine, and so on and so forth, a few hundred years earlier burning witches in Salem was fine. Just because there was a historic standard doesn’t mean it’s right.

          You state you believe in objective standards and trusts but you seem to apply none here other than people in the 30s said it was wrong. Are you judging it as wrong based off an opinion then? Or by the standards of the past? If you were to blame your views on it being wrong on the belief in a deity who said it was wrong then I could also understand.

          If we take consent and age of consent off the table we observe that Pedophilia is wrong because it harms a person, there is objective evidence of this in the study of paedophilia and sexual abuse. There is actual science showing that this harms a child, there is no peer-reviewed studies showing gay harms anyone, and if it did, then the people being harmed are allowing it by giving consent.

          Most of history did not reject homosexuality, in fact it was celebrated by those here in the Americas, accepted in East Asia, Europe, and even the Middle East. When you start looking pedophilia it wasn’t always considered wrong either, both the Old Testament and Koran have deities or prophets that approve of pedophilia under certain circumstances. Mary was 14 when she was given away to marriage, and that’s not the interpretation or standard of marriage I wish to follow.

        • There is no comparison between lusting an eight year-old and another adult. Homosexuality involves two consenting adults. Pedophilia does not and is a form of abuse. Nor is homosexuality un-natural. It is actually quite natural and happens with many other animals in nature. That is why it even exists in the first place. If it wasn’t natural, it would have to be induced by something else. It is not amenable to reproduction of the species is all. Morally, there is nothing wrong with it.

        • Let’s use some uncommon sense here, what opinion says is right or wrong has nothing to do with what is right or wrong, something is either right or it is not. Right and wrong do not change with the blowing winds. And one person can have completely different beliefs in that regard, as long as they keep their hands off anyone who disagrees. Fundamentalist fruitcakes want to use the power of government to force others to bend a knee to their betters, setting themselves up for the guillotine.

          Oh, and essentially all religions have been sanctioning marriages between grown men and 8-year-olds for thousands of years. As if the word “marriage” makes it all OK.

      • I’m baptized christian, after growing up in the Bay Area indoctrinated in liberal/progressive belief systems. I’m old school. I believe the bible is a manual on how to build a strong society based on laws of the universe, otherwise known as the laws of G-d. These laws support the main purpose for why we are here. The primary focus, if you will. That purpose? To create a safe space, to raise mature and responsible children, with the conscious commitment, of seven generations.

        That’s it. All of society, all of our civilization, all of our technology, is for only one purpose, to create a safe space to raise children for seven generations.

        There are a number of behaviors that are considered “sinful” in the eyes of G-d that violate the basic rules of the universe that harm or are destructive to this “prime directive”.

        Sex outside of marriage, adultery, no divorce except under very strict circumstances, Lying, cheating, stealing,, gluttony, drunkenness, living in debt and same sex relationships, among others.

        Personally, same sex relationships are at the bottom of the list of what is destructive to a strong culture. To me, gay relationships, since gays are about 2 to 5 percent of any population, is less of danger to our society than the common “sinful” behavior of the heterosexual men and women living together in sexual relationships outside of marriage, or if they are married, the high frequency of divorce, or the common practice of many couples deciding not to have children at all.

        So out of this now common “sinful” behavior, gay relationships being only a minor blip out of the totality of the greater ‘sinful” behavior of the greater heterosexual population, we are seeing the destruction of our families, the greater destructive and lawless behavior of children from single parent families, and the falling population of most of the western world.

        And so just as those that say they can violate the laws of the universe with impunity, just as those that step off the edge of a tall building say they can violate the laws of gravity, they can feel justified in this violation, for a time, until the sudden stop at the end.

        So is being in a gay relationship any more “evil” than a man and woman living in a sexual relationship outside of marriage? At least to me, no. To me, they are equally in violation of the “prime directive”. And like all societies that have violated these laws, in time, those societies will experience the sudden stop at the end, and will have a societal collapse.

        And anyone that denies that we are at that point, with 54 trillion in unsecured debt, has not been keeping up with current events.

        • I can agree with most of your concepts of what is wrong with our society, and believe that teaching how a properly functioning society can contribute to better lives for us all is a good idea. But making all that dependent on “You gotta BELIEVE!!!” in some supernatural silliness and magic which is clearly BS, just destroys all credibility with those who have opened their eyes at some point. Put up or shut up. Call god down here to answer for its crimes or drop it, it has outlived its usefulness as a threat to little children. File it away with Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, as well as Puff, the Magic Dragon, all are equivalent, unless you can provide some video.

      • Hooray for you Barry for what you do in your bedroom. Now, stop the silly moral superiority signalling, and get back to the point of this blog on gun culture article about the “serious” NYT devolving to the same juvenile trick “signalling” moral superiority while disrespecting its own journalists by sending them out on a misleading story. The practical impact of that kind of literary effort is more properly referred to as agitprop.

        Another minor quibble- diverting to attacking Ted Cruz because he said you are evil? Link to a quote where he said gays are evil. I could be wrong, but I dont think thats his approach. You are free to say and think what you want, but a pathetic strawman argument wont win much respect here. Typical troll trick.

      • Below is Cruz’s stand on gay marriage. This text is from the Seth Meyers show, but it’s basically the same as he’s said many times over.

        “I’m a constitutionalist.  For over 200 years, marriage has been a question for the states. Now, personally, I believe in traditional marriage between one man and one woman, but if you want to change the marriage laws, the way to do it constitutionally is convince your fellow citizens, go to the state legislature, and change it. It shouldn’t be the federal government or unelected judges imposing their own definition of marriage — we should instead respect our constitutional system.”

        Nothing in there says anything about hating anyone or that anyone is evil. It’s utterly asinine to impute nefarious intentions on someone else’s part, with zero evidence, simply because you disagree with a policy or you disagree with constitutional processes.

        Moreover, it’s counterproductive. For all their moral preening and lip service, liberal policies don’t actually benefit you. Obama can love gays all day, but how does his love help you when your home is violently invaded after he’s unconstitutionally confiscated your self-defense firearms?

        You say it’s easy to be a single issue voter when one is a straight, white, Christian male? Well, yes, but that’s not quite why. It’s easy to be a single issue voter once you realize there is only a single issue, albeit multifaceted, and that issue is Individuality.

        Liberal policies subordinate the Individual to the State.  If you allow them to convince you that side issues are truly consequential, you’ll lose sight of individuality and vote for candidates who view you as chattel.

        • Cruz is full of shit, here, and he is smart and educated enough to know it. The USA sent troops to murder Mormons until they surrendered to the will of Rome and foreswore polygamy. Anyone who disagreed was shot to death. Yet he claims that states can make their own rules? Who is he kidding? Let one or two states allow multiple wives and see how far that goes.

  3. He lied to the instructor about why he was getting permit and apparently didn’t think there was anything wrong with that. Why not just tell the truth? It wouldn’t have been grounds for refusal or anything.

  4. I do believe 4 hours of training is not enough for conceal carry, BUT having the government dictate what training is required has always been the tool of tyrants. It is better to point people in the right direction, tell them why it is important, and let them do it on their own. In reality, most of it is self-study anyway.

    • I think 45 seconds is adequate training for concealed carry, and that is if you are a slow reader, there are only 27 words. I was carrying for over 35 years before I took a course, starting as a teenager, without incident. That included around 5 years after a license was available, since I felt no need for one and didn’t much trust the intentions of the government. Those with a trifle of sense will see to it they have the training they require. And BTW, have you any idea how much trouble VT has had with absolute zero training for the past 200+ years? The only excuse for requiring “training” at all is to exercise CONTROL over you.

  5. I’m so tired of this beta BS. Seriously an inanimate object scares you? The training he wants exists, go seek it out. I get it, you think the gubmint should provide for all your needs, but guess what, thats not how the world is supposed to work cupcake.

    • Actually, I think the goal of requiring all manner of tactical training, to the James Bond level, is that YOU will have to pay for it, more and more and more, until there is not one licensee in the whole country, Donald Trump couldn’t afford it.

  6. Almost every person with whom I am friends with who is a WA CPL holder has the attitude that the license is a hoop that is to be jumped through, and that it is in their best interest to see to their own training needs. So far, this process seems to have worked.
    I just hope enough people who read this person’s work realize that he gets out of the process that which he puts in to the process.

  7. From his own words. Enough said:
    —————–

    I didn’t realize I’d have to shoot again so soon. I hadn’t taught myself how to aim yet, and I wanted a few seconds to learn from the first shot. I also hadn’t learned how to deal with the recoil. Anxiously, I pointed and shot — a few seconds after my neighbors. I still missed.

    That’s when the instructor yelled at me. “You need to line up your sights!” I had no idea what that meant. He explained that for me to aim properly the dot at the front of the gun needed to be inside the post at the back of the gun.

    • Plus, the fact that it’s relatively easy to learn quickly is a point in the gun’s favor, not against. Means the weak/poor/disadvantaged don’t need to dedicate substantial parts of their valuable time to learning. This is (admittedly, partially) what broke the power of knights and samurai, unless author enjoys assuming he’d be the knight and not the peasant who the knight tests his sword on.

  8. What sort of training was he expecting? When you get your driver’s license they don’t teach you defensive driving, how to tell if you are being followed, escaping a hostile situation in a vehicle, or a myriad of any other scenarios.

    He went into the course with an agenda and a false set of expectations. That is his fault, and his fault alone.

  9. So how much training did he have before exercising his first amendment rights? Did he get the required training before writing an article for a major newspaper? Shouldn’t he have been require to pass the proper journalism testing and training before being allowed to be published?

    Oh yeah, when you become an adult you have an certain expectation that you take adult thing seriously. That you can see when you don’t know enough about something and take on the responsibly to learn about it before you do it. Mommy and Daddy are not there anymore to say NO and make you learn about it before you do it. Welcome to being a responsible adult. Time to grow up kid.

    • You have a point. He should have to take a course and pass a test on ALL of the Bill of Rights before he could write an article for a newspaper. And be retrained every few years. I’d suggest a course around a week long, and at a cost of thousands.

  10. editor Andrew Rosenthal revealed that his pistol-packing boss had declared a jihad on American gun rights.
    Sooo….we have a Bolshevik Jew having Muslim Jihad on American Gun Rights and performing a study with preconceived and predetermined outcome.
    Guess what? He proved it! Surprise, surprise!
    Sort of like the Global Warming Studies with various warming fudge constants to prove the earth is indeed heating up tremendously due to coal power plants along the Ohio River.

  11. I know, but don’t understand, why the media hires such ignorant young twerps to create content for them.

    The prototype for this twerp is Ezra Klein, the young know-it-all that peddles all sorts of prognostication and “analysis” and used to do so for the Washington Post. Klein has squandered any reputation he was going to make for himself by wading into a very complex topic about which he knew only that which he had been taught in the halls of academia, and promptly made everyone quite aware that he didn’t know his butt from a warm rock.

    This is going to be a replay. Here we have a smart-assed twerp, recent graduate, who thinks he knows all manner of things about a large, complex issue. He’s being hired by a big media name (NYT) and he’s promptly going to cost the NYT and himself so much reputation that I hope he has a career backup plan, like maybe being a web editor for a porn film review site or something.

    The media hires these twerps because they’re cheap – in terms of money. In terms of reputation, these twerps are hugely expensive, and are part of what is leading to the eventual extinction of large “”reputation” newspaper names.

    • “He’s being hired by a big media name (NYT) and he’s promptly going to cost the NYT and himself so much reputation that I hope he has a career backup plan, like maybe being a web editor for a porn film review site or something.”

      Oh, Hell no.

      He’s playing right to the NYT base.

      He’ll be lauded as ‘Brilliant’, ‘Provocative’, and ‘Insightful’.

      This is the same rag that hired and *kept* Jayson Blair for months following the first evidence of his artistic license, as in blatant fiction, brand of ‘reporting’.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayson_Blair

      And the ‘Grey Lady’ just keeps on truckin’…

    • Thanks, DG, for putting this nitwit in context. You are correct of course, if the NYT was the paper of record, and stood for some sort of journalistic ethic, even as recently as ten years ago. When it went all in, hard left for Obama, it sacrificed that integrity and reputation, and the subscriptions, ad revenue, and stock price heading off the cliff lately only confirms that serious news readers dont waste their time on the Times.

      The Grey Lady has become a tawdry old whore- a cheat sheet for the wannabe Kos Kool Klub Kids in NY, and the smart set in the elite salons, who want to know what to think, to get along in the left-wing bubble, where following the party line is more important than using your own brain.

      • PS: “To pull an Ezra Klein” will become a stock phrase for journalists, as more realize their stock in trade is their own credibility, based on hard work, fact and insight- rather than blatant propagandizing. There are a lot of young schmucks thinking they are the smartest guys in the room, post Journolista scandal, thinking they can monetize propaganda, “trading up the chain” and so on at PuffHo’s, and maybe some hope that just like Ezra they will make a few bucks- but they be reviled later, just as crooked bond traders and investment bankers are becoming objects of scorn,
        because eventually people get tired of the hypocrisy, and spin, and being used, and just go somewhere else- NYT is the prime example, but there are others.

        When you see WAPO fluttering its broken wings and loudly clucking in alarm, lamenting Alex Jones as an example of “fringe media becoming mainstream”, well-

        you can tell the Left is running scared, as well they should. The sad part is too many editors who should know better are lemmings, still, running over the cliff, some even sensing the edge is just ahead but afraid to leave the progressive Alinsky mob.

  12. “What he needed was a week, or more likely a month, a firearms training before getting to this stage, to make up for the years of experience most people bring to the training.”

    A month of training? Negative, you don’t need weeks, or months, or even days of training. I taught my grade school aged kids to shoot safely and accurately in a day.

    Its a gun, not an airplane. Grip, sight alignment, trigger control, follow though; 4 safety rules and a half day at the range, then you’re G2G.

    • Agreed, 100%, taught my 4-year-old to fire a revolver (.38 Spl) in around 20 minutes, failed miserably in the peripheral observation area, since it turned out he was standing on a Texas anthill at the time, which cut his practice time significantly when they took exception.

  13. Barry, you love who you want too. Gay or straight… to me at least it doesn’t matter. Nor does the color of someone’s skin. Male or female.
    People have a right to defend themselves. My wife and I both have ccw. We pray that I never have to use them…. but if we are put in that position….. it’s better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.

    And that is what this beta male clown wants all of us to be. Carried by 6.
    From everything I’ve seen sanders is no friend of the 2a.
    Remember when the current tyrant in chief said he wasn’t coming for our guns?

  14. For the classes I teach I am almost at that point of requiring people to provide proof they are not an operative of the Democrat Party. Not sure how…maybe require voter registration card or something.

  15. My high speed low drag firearms operator class consisted of a single shot .22lr rifle, a brick of ammo, tin cans, paper cards, and a sheep pasture. I did have the guidance of a former Advanced Marksman Staff Sergeant ( also known as dad), and an experienced firearms instructor ( also known as grandpa).

    • Doesn’t get much better than that. I had to go find a substitute for the pasture, and Dad didn’t know (or care) which end of a gun was which, but how much .22 I put through that single-shot Marlin over the course of 5-10 years would be anybody’s guess. No tin can nor pop bottle was safe.

    • Marlin Golden Crown single shot .22, 4X Weaver scope on dovetail grooves, BTW, it’s been 55 years and I remember some of the particulars, because it was important to me.

  16. Theoretical: we compromise on the “mandatory gun training” bit, proguns will accept this if antiguns will make it mandatory for everyone with no opt-out or “conscientious objection”. Sure, it gives the “state” an in for further control, but we all know that a lot of antigun sentiment is due to ignorance and we’d cure that part forever.

  17. “I’m a Responsible Gun Owner? Seriously?”

    No, you aren’t. The “license” has nothing to do with it.

    A “Responsible Gun Owner” would never get near, let alone attempt to generally carry, such a powerful tool without understanding it. Insert “chain saw” every place you say “gun” and you may get some idea how stupid, dangerous, and irresponsible you were. If there’s a list of people who are never allowed to purchase a gun, you belong on it for being such an idiot.

    The point is, responsible gun owners are *responsible.* Laws suitable for your childish, mugging clowning shouldn’t be applied to grown-ups.

    The “people of the gun” are responsible, first. For their use of firearms. For their own safety. For their own lives. And, unlike you, for arguing responsibly about facts and outcomes, and who is really involved in doing what. Disarming better people than you, because you are stupid enough to pull a stunt like that, punishes the wrong folks.

    You have, however, provided a fine argument against licensing. Looking soberly at what actually happened, no licensing that can’t be hijacked to produce graft, favoritism and targeting of undesirables (remember Jim Crow?) will be strong enough to protect against willful idiots like you.

  18. “But what if a man who just attacked me or my wife is running away? I can shoot him, right?” a man asked.

    “That would be murder.”

    Glad we cleared that up.

    Not in Michigan… it’s legal to shoot a fleeing felon although from what I remember it’s written in such a way it be better off NOT to do it.

    • “Not in Michigan… it’s legal to shoot a fleeing felon although from what I remember it’s written in such a way it be better off NOT to do it.”

      I’m not so sure about that.

      That woman who shot at the Home Depot felony shoplifters was found guilty and had her concealed carry permit revoked.

      “Woman who shot at shoplifters vows to ‘never help anybody again’ after conviction”

      http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/midwest/ct-michigan-shoplifter-concealed-carry-20151211-story.html

      • Huh I didn’t realize that story happened in michigan. Also that’s why I added it’s better to not shoot a fleeing felon because of the criteria is really specific *. I know a jewelry store owner in Grand Rapids MI used this law when a robber did a smash and grab… during the day… at lunch time.

        *I’ve never actually read the law (it’s number 345 on my list of laws to look up when I got time) I remember listening to a local gun law lawyer for my local area talk about it.

  19. The process he was in was for a concealed carry permit; it was not a remedial gun-handling course. The course is no doubt configured on the assumption that people seeking a CCP have at least some prior experience. What he needed was a week, or more likely a month, a firearms training before getting to this stage, to make up for the years of experience most people bring to the training.

    It has been my experience that many, many people go for their concealed carry permit training barely aware which end of the barrel the round comes out of. They’ve maybe handled a gun once or twice, and don’t own one. The NRA “First Steps” class (valid for a CHP in Colorado) truly is their First Step. (There are other classes offered for more experienced shooters, that skip the real basics and go directly to the stuff you need to know under state law to get the permit.)

    That having been said, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest that it is this “easy” to get the permit, since I don’t think one should be necessary anyway.

  20. Cringe worthy. I’m really skeptical of training. Some are fine with little or none. Heck, guns are tools, they make life easier. It shouldn’t have to be like a part time job.

    But, the author, the instructor, and the shop that rented him the gun all did things I would not do. I wouldn’t hand a newb a gun and set him loose, and if I were a newb (or in any case) I wouldn’t dump responsibility for my actions in the lap of an instructor, esp one not trying to teach basic handling.

  21. I mean, lordy, pick up and load a gun you’ve no idea how to use, no idea how to unload, around others, to prove a point, for an article. Charming. I guess it’s OK because it’s someone else problem to keep you from hurting yourself or others. The world should be one of those children’s ball pits.

  22. When I acquired my CCP, the requirement was a 10 hour class in addition to required range time. This for me was great, as my prior experience with handguns was a cap pistol at about six years old. Now while I was a dead eye with my cap gun, this did not in any way prepare me for handling a real gun. Yes, I know that a large amount of the people on this site have had the opportunity to use and own (real) guns from a very early age but what of the people like me, where do we get the knowledge required to safely handle a weapon.

    While I believe that people should not be required to possess a license to own a weapon, one should be required to show some type of proficiency before being allowed to carry it.

    Now my only question is where do I go to get training with a rifle and shotgun, I’ve seen some real nice looking guns that I am dying to try.

    • Ah yes. AM, you should have prefaced your statement “one should be required to show some type of proficiency before being allowed to carry it.” With “I FEEL, based on no evidence”

      In places where there is no requirement to carry a firearm OC or CC, as in the seven constitutional carry states, there is no evidence that “un-certified” people are any more dangerous as those with a licence or certification.

      This is why the Constitutional Carry states have gone from 1 to seven. The legislatures have been shown by fact, experience and history, that law abiding citizens can be trusted to exercise their second amendment rights responsibly, without government need of supervision of their training requirements.

    • This may seem trivial but I’ve found the best place to start is at an indoor gun range. Most if not all of them sell guns, most if not all provide training programs, most if not all employees really want you to be a satisfied customer.

  23. It’s nice to be noticed, but I’m not a “millennial,” whatever that may be. I’m definitely an OFWG. Born in a barn, raised in an outhouse, educated in a one-room country wonder. Like “Indiana Dan” I got my training in a pasture, from a battlefield-commissioned veteran who went through the Pacific War with a scope-mounted sniper’s version Garand (AKA Dad).

  24. What a generation of pussies, “I have never touched a gun, they actually scare me” while American kids are taught about safe spaces, feelings, your inner homo-sexual, and how to get offended at just about everything, Russian kids are being taught this http://youtu.be/LrxjYfl05ek

    But guns are so scary! They go bang! All by themselves! Scary, icky, dirty things!

  25. The first revolver I handled was my grandfather’s old pistol that had been fired, as far as I k now, exactly twice, in the air, during a bank robbery at a bank where he was clerking. I unloaded the rather green ammo, and took it to a guns tore for cleaning and test firing. The gun store clerk showed me a new .38 snubbie, and to be frank, I was shaking like a leaf holding it, even though it was unloaded, a function of my unfamiliarity with firearms.

    I really didn’t start shooting until many years later. No one “taught” me how to shoot. I went to the local indoor range, they handed me a sheet with the four rules, which I read and signed. I started with a bolt action .22 rifle I had purchased, and when I felt proficient with that, I rented a Glock. They showed me how to load it and chamber a round, and off I went. I subsequently did a lot of reading about stance, grip, sighting, and kept shooting, eventually purchasing my own 9 mm Springfield. I took my son, and later my daughter, teaching them what I had learned.

    California has an “up to 16 hours” of training time requirement for a CCW, generally split half between shooting and classroom. However, in order to purchase a firearm, one has to pass a written test covering basic safety rules and transfer laws, and delivery of a handgun requires a safe handling demonstration involving the loading , unloading, and clearing of the purchased firearm, so even a novice will show up for a CCW class with the safety basics in mind. My CCW class had four hours of classroom, with the rest self-study. Renewals only require the classroom element. The shooting portion, depending on instructor, involves 100 to 200 rounds fired, and as the instructors assume, until shown otherwise, that everyone is a novice, most follow the basic NRA basic firearms training program. Counties vary as to shooting proficiency, some requiring only a demonstration of safe handling, others requiring a (timed) scored shooting at various distances.

  26. Why do I NEED any requirements to CC(or open carry)? No real testing in Indiana-no daily bloodbaths, no problems…no nothing. It’s either a right or it ain’t…my testing in Illinois is BS. Made worse by living a scant mile from INdiana. Yes this boy is a punk-so what? He probably wears skinny jeans too…constitutional carry or bust!

  27. Took my CHL long after I learned to shoot. Already knew how to clear a jammed pistol, the safe handling of a handgun, site picture, proper grip etc. by going to gun range with my sister-in-law on a regular basis. Learned to respect weapons visiting my Grandfather’s ranch as a kid by watching him dispatch a rattle snake too close to his cattle. Watched my uncle shoot a hog for the table. I’ve never been afraid of guns but sure learned to respect them, due to time on that ranch.
    A shame we have lost a lot of learning survival skills by being such an urban society.

  28. I think we need to embrace mandatory training, We teach drivers ed in high school, lets teach marksmanship and safe gun handling. Hell, lets have free classes at community collages too. Lets use that 11% Federal Excise Tax on something other than on hunters. Lets be honest, how many gun owners actually go hunting? Why should I be taxed on my home defense gun to pay for game and wildlife?

    • It’s the camel in the tent argument.
      You capitulate and allow government the tiniest bit of control over the exercise of a right and they will continue to wiggle and squirm until they have absolute control over it.

      It’s not a Rep vs Dem, not a Left vs Right, not a Libs vs Cons argument/indictment. It’s basic human nature. We will seek to expand our power and influence at the expense of others. No one is immune.

      You’ve heard the old saying: Power corrupts & absolute power corrupts absolutely. Until we remove human flaws from our elected officials we need to realize none of them will ever have our best interest at heart.

    • “I think we need to embrace mandatory training…”

      You mean creating patronized interests: the people who deliver, administer, and manage the effectiveness of the training program, under the guise of protecting the rest of us from people who have done nothing wrong? The incentives are mis-aligned. The more training required, the more they get paid … in money extracted from people who want to own guns. The folks delivering the training have every incentive to make the training not work, while keeping the mandating-authorities (pandering politicians, and wee-wee-d up citizenry they incite) – um – wee-weed up. You never see a regulatory apparatus declare victory and disband. They’re not in the solving the problem business. They’re in the maintaining the problem business.

      Worse, the *size* of the incentives is perverse. A few trainers, bureaucrats and politicians get larger pots of money, extracted from larger numbers of The Regulated, in smaller chunks. Who do you think is going to contribute politically, lobby, or even vote, more on “more regulation.” (The best presentation of this argument I have seen is in Lester Thurow’s Zero Sum Society, and he’s hardly a free-market, libertarian, or conservative by any stretch.)

      So, you are saying mandate people buy something they would not otherwise, to satisfy people who are neither the users or providers of the product, creating a market that exists, and grows only in terms of the regulation imposed by some third parties to the transaction. The regulators, “service providers”, and enforcers form a nice organized system, extracting money from somebody else. The first create the mandate. The second deliver on the mandate. The third make sure everybody (else) adheres to the mandate & pays off.

      Nice hobby you have there. Would be a shame if anything happened to it.

      I prefer that any proposal of more regulation, particularly of third parties, particularly mandating purchase of this or that, contain an argument addressing the perverse incentives. Why won’t it go sideways? What’s to stop it from growing until it eats the world? What’s to keep it on point?

      “Regulation” rarely works as intended, so maybe take that into account.

      *I* think we should more aggressively promote optional training, and standards for the same, recognized by, you know, people who know something about using guns.

      NYT-guy, whom I now declare will be known by his political pesona name: “Gun-In-Hand” has the option of becoming competent, or not, which he did not take; of getting trained, or not, which he did not take; and showing any discretion and judgment at all, or not, which, surprising no one he declined with a vengeance. Realize that his licensing experience *is a regulation made real.* This is what you get.

      Really, what’s wrong with a discrete “Underwriters’ Laboratory”-type certification? Why is the answer mandating that other people do something, satisfactory to people with neither involvement nor understanding in what they’re directing? If the value of the cert is what it stands for, the people who issue the cert will work very hard to protect their brand.

      So, how does that work? Some yahoo shows up at a range, not at the “beginners” or “introduction” course, first question: “So, what do you know about guns?” “Oh, sorry “Gun-In-Hand” we have a policy: unless you have a cert that we recognize, you have to start with a beginners or introductory course. You can test out, of course if you want to show me what you got.”

      Apropos of nothing in particular, I’m recalling that in the quality-oriented martial arts, as a guest, you sit at the beginner end of the class doing beginner things unless and until invited to do otherwise.

      Odd how that came to mind…

    • I can agree, so long as it is required for everyone, and required retraining every few years. Not just for those who wish to shoot or own guns, but for EVERYONE. Grandfathered for your current job, but to be hired for another job, or promoted, EVER, you have to have the mandatory training, and of course the periodic retraining requirement will catch you soon enough anyway. Suddenly it is not a joke to be inflicted on someone else, it is YOU that will have to pay for it. And it’s not so funny any more.

  29. New York Times is advocating the denial of lawful Constitutional rights to American citizens… isn’t that something the gov’t would shut them down over if they were advocating a “right wing” position?

    • Seriously, if the NYT said women shouldn’t vote and pushed that agenda in print, they’d be shut down. Fast. (But gun confiscation is cool… and there’s only a whole Amendment saying it’s a civil right, just like women’s ability to vote.)

  30. Sheeeeeeeeit.

    NYTs heads would explode if they knew how HARD it is to get a permit in WA state. (Oddly enough a state that has had a CPL for several decades.)

    You have to actually leave your house.
    Go all the way down to the Sheriff’s office.
    Pull out $52.50.
    Now here is the hard part… Fill out a single page form, it has like 20 lines of text!
    Then get your fingerprints taken.
    Then wait 1-30 days for it to come in the mail.

    STRINGENT REQUIREMENTS!

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