“Sitting down for dinner at any Texan diner, in my experience, often involves guns,” Rachel Stewart of the Tarnaki Daily News (New Zealand) informs her readers.
I can't recall the exact number of times I have eaten a meal in the immediate company of a man, or men, with shooters on their hips in plain view. For me, I am always equal parts spellbound and queasy.
Spellbound because there is something so fundamentally cowboy and western about it. Guns, freedom, country music and the Second Amendment. It is Texas after all. Yeeha!
Try to recall the exact number, Ms. Stewart. Because funny thing about Texas, besides that “Yeeha!” stereotype you ridicule them with. From Open Carry.org:
Texas is not a traditional open carry state. They also do not allow open carry, or even printing, by those who have a concealed carry permit.
And from NRA-ILA’s “Firearms Laws for Texas”:
It is unlawful to intentionally, knowingly or recklessly carry on or about one’s person a handgun in a motor vehicle if the handgun is in plain view…
It’s true that gun rights advocates are pushing for open carry reforms, and a discussion from last month on the OpenCarry.org forum tells us of a pledge to sponsor a bill in the upcoming session.
But sorry, aside from the "I can't recall" part, your story simply doesn’t wash.
So which is it, Ms. Stewart? Do you habitually frequent establishments populated by brazen armed lawbreakers, where the proprietors and customers are oblivious to Texas law and violate it openly, and with impunity? Or is your hoplophobia, your “queasiness” at the mere thought of armed citizens so deeply rooted that you’ve become delusional, unable to distinguish your “spellbound” hallucinations from reality?
Or maybe you’re just…uh…making it all up, so secure in your snotty sophistication over the “Yeeha!” rubes, and so sure of the ignorance of anyone who would give credence to the drivel you churn out that you think you can feed them anything and they’ll swallow it? And they’ll all think you a clever girl because of your talent for wittily stringing words—even if they are demonstrably untrue…?
To paraphrase the title of your hit piece, Ms. Stewart, even gals not toting guns need manners. And even writers of opinion pieces, as opposed to “straight news,” have a basic ethical obligation to form their arguments around the truth. But you go right on being “comfortable” with New Zealand citizen disarmament edicts, and with viewing human rights as privileges to be doled out by parental masters to their childlike charges. And you can even go on thinking New Zealand “women are made of sterner stuff” than Americans.
Evidently unlike you, I don’t judge entire groups based on generalities, but I am proud to know a few individual women who can do a lot better than a fire extinguisher when it comes to self defense (and I don’t suppose the fact that the chamber where the Clay incident you cite took place was a government-enforced “No Guns” zone violated by a “prohibited person” enters into your spellbound thinking?).
And the other good thing about these women I know: They don’t lie.
They’re made of sterner stuff than that.
Yeeha!
Also see:
- Propaganda ‘journalism’ blames U.S. gun laws for Mexican violence
- Just what does someone have to do for ABC to consider him ‘anti-gun’?
- Biggest gun rights story of 2010 based in Bellevue, ignored by local press
- “Authorized Journalist” archives
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Highlights from 2010 on Trigger Sports LIVE! Episode 104
From American Trigger Sports Network host James B. Towle:
Featured Guests include George Digweed, Kim Rhode, Massad Ayoob, Todd Bender and Derek Hurt plus highlights from our weekly contributing guests, Rachel Parsons, Barbara Crown, David Codrea and Mark Walters. Shooters in action at the US Open, No. Am. FITASC, Tri-Tip Pistol Match, SY Valley Bow Club, Appleseed, plus Brad Kidd, Jr HOA and more...
Thanks for a great year and we'll see you next week with a new Episode to start our Third Season.
All this, and more, at www.atsn.tv - The #1 Network for Trigger Sports! On your computer, 24/7, when YOU want to see it!
Event DVD's available from the ATSN.tv store.Happy New Year!
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A matter of resolve
Last year at this time, I came up with a series of New Year’s Resolutions to count down the days until January 1. Since they’re pretty much evergreen, I’m going to refer to them again this year, as something for newcomers to this column to consider, and as a reminder for those of you who have been long-time readers. Here’s today’s:
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Help wanted--inquire within
Regular readers: Please help me spread the word by sharing Gun Rights Examiner links with your friends via emails, and in online discussion boards, blogs, etc.? (Also note “Share” options, below.) Then get more commentary at The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance.
Comments
This fool woman would probably require psychiatric hospitalization if she were to stumble upon one of our gatherings here in Wyoming.
A local restaurant will reserve a table for "Mama and her bunch" at a moment's notice... or find us one without any warning. They are happy to welcome 6 or 20 armed adults without a single twitch.
The only other people who even seem to notice are the tourists... and I've never seen one who was hostile.
I'd invite this lady to visit us... but I wouldn't want to be responsible for her nervous breakdown. The truth really does hurt sometimes.
Wow, Rachel Stewart needs to get a clue as can be easily seen by her comment:
"All those rights and freedoms. It just feels wrong somehow."
Sorry Ma'am, ain't nothin` wrong with having rights and freedoms. Yeehaw from Texas!
ps. I'm sure "your" Clay wouldn't hear "Ginger's equivalent" breaking the glass to retrieve the fire extinguisher either.
Must have been some other Texas or some other era. Or maybe she can't tell the difference between Only Ones and honest folks. Only Ones are the only ones who can openly carry in Texas without being murdered by The Law.
I suggest everyone forward this to the Editor:
Editor: Roy Pilott
roy.pilott@dailynews.co.nz
Columnists who simply make up lies are unacceptable, even in KiwiLand.
I intend to send a personal email to him, one editor to another.
The attitude here in the South is not good. Registered voter types believe in the right to keep arms in your home or car, but not bear handguns. Only "nigge*rs" carry pistols, many country club republicans say in private. The Fl supreme court admitted this in the 20's. They overturned a conviction of a white man carrying a concealed pistol without a permit. The chief justice was horrified. Why, the permit system is only for colored people, he exclaimed. Now we're all slaves.
Presently in the state of Texas, unless a person has a concealed carry permit, it is illegal for that person to intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly carry on or about his or her person a handgun, if the person is not on his/her own premises or premises under his/her control, or inside of or directly en-route to a motor vehicle owned by or under the control of that person.
If a person is carrying on his/her own premises or on premises under his/her control it makes no difference whether the handgun is concealed or not. Otherwise, in a vehicle and/or with a concealed carry permit, the handgun must be concealed.
In fact, and unfortunately, open carry of a handgun off one’s own premises can land a person in a county jail for up to a year along with a substantial fine. Carrying in certain locations can result in felony charges being prosecuted.
My guess is that the writer of the New Zealand piece has never been closer to Texas than her local cinema.
[W3]
Right on David! And a big Yeeha from Texas!
Tina III
She'd S**T her pants if she ever came to Arizona
She would soil her pantys here in Eastern Washington as well.
I think we've just discovered what happened to Janet Cooke!
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