Trigger Dr
Regular Member
imported post
From John Farnam, master firearm's instructor and former Marine Combat Officer, Vietnam.
-------Original Message-------
From: JSFarnam@aol.com
Date: 12/6/2009 5:25:20 PM
To: dtiquips@clouds.com
Subject: [Dtiquips] Moral Dilemma
6 Dec 09
Several days ago, the Colorado Board of Regents abruptly voted to rescind
the long-established right of college students, professors, and other state
CCW Permit holders to carry concealed on state campuses, reversing a
nationwide trend in the opposite direction. The ruling was unexpected,
completely capricious, and not in response to any particular incident. A
predictable flurry of challenges is ongoing.
In the interim, many students have written, asking for advice. They are
in a moral dilemma, not shared with those of us who are not students and do
not frequent college campuses.
There are, or course, risks inherent to having guns around. However,
there are also risks inherent to not having guns around. Risk-free personal
choices don't exist in this matter, nor in most others.
This is our current situation within world history:
Congress, state and federal, no longer really makes "laws." They pass "leg
islation," and then innumerable, unelected state and federal agencies,
bureaus, boards, and committees swoop in and "interpret" the "Intent of
Congress" (a curious phrase, since senators and congressmen rarely read
legislation before voting on it), translating it into never-ending "regulations"
and "rules," which, as we descend the food-chain, are re-translated into "
policies," "procedures," "routines," and "agendas."
The volume is now so immense, incomprehensible, self-contradictory, and
selectively/inconsistently enforced that it is impossible for even saintly
among us to so much as know what "the Law" is, much less adhere to it, which,
of course, makes all of us inadvertent, and more-or-less continuous, "
law-breakers," priming us as targets, to one degree or another, for selective
enforcement when any of us becomes too much an irritant to the current
political regime.
Meanwhile, real criminals are, of course, not nearly so confused,
perplexed, nor frustrated. They continue to victimize the rest of us, in most
cases, with virtual impunity. In fact, the only apprehension that consistently
haunts them, indeed the sole authentic deterrent to violent crime, is the
possibility of accidently selecting an armed "victim."
"The Law" flows not only from this flawed framework of so-called "
democratic process," but also from its underlying axioms of Justice, Dignity,
Morality, and Logic. And, when these foundational underpinnings are
disgracefully politicized, indeed hijacked, as is the case when conspicuously
unconstitutional legislation is passed as a result of either willful ignorance or
active criminality, ensuing laws, rules, and regulations are null and void
at the outset, having failed to meet requisite essentials to create a duty
of conscience to obey.
The bottom line brings us back to where we started:
You're on your own!
Regent Board members, and just about everyone else up the food-chain, could
not possibly care less about anyone but themselves. Beastly, vicious
massacrers will come and go, and they'll all still keep their jobs. This has
certainly been the case at VA Tech, on both counts!
Accordingly, we citizens have to make timely decisions which reflect our
own personal best interests, knowing full-well that sometimes we will be
mistaken, and that we will never have all information we believe we need.
Decisions have to be made regardless, and we can't afford to spend much
time thinking about what might have been!
There will be no relief, no divine guidance, and no guarantees. And, in
the end, we're all dead anyway. Between then and now, I, for one, will face
to the front and do my best to fulfill my destiny, as my limited connection
with divinity gives me the vision to see it, bearing full, personal
responsibility for everything I do, and everything I decide not to do.
/John
From John Farnam, master firearm's instructor and former Marine Combat Officer, Vietnam.
-------Original Message-------
From: JSFarnam@aol.com
Date: 12/6/2009 5:25:20 PM
To: dtiquips@clouds.com
Subject: [Dtiquips] Moral Dilemma
6 Dec 09
Several days ago, the Colorado Board of Regents abruptly voted to rescind
the long-established right of college students, professors, and other state
CCW Permit holders to carry concealed on state campuses, reversing a
nationwide trend in the opposite direction. The ruling was unexpected,
completely capricious, and not in response to any particular incident. A
predictable flurry of challenges is ongoing.
In the interim, many students have written, asking for advice. They are
in a moral dilemma, not shared with those of us who are not students and do
not frequent college campuses.
There are, or course, risks inherent to having guns around. However,
there are also risks inherent to not having guns around. Risk-free personal
choices don't exist in this matter, nor in most others.
This is our current situation within world history:
Congress, state and federal, no longer really makes "laws." They pass "leg
islation," and then innumerable, unelected state and federal agencies,
bureaus, boards, and committees swoop in and "interpret" the "Intent of
Congress" (a curious phrase, since senators and congressmen rarely read
legislation before voting on it), translating it into never-ending "regulations"
and "rules," which, as we descend the food-chain, are re-translated into "
policies," "procedures," "routines," and "agendas."
The volume is now so immense, incomprehensible, self-contradictory, and
selectively/inconsistently enforced that it is impossible for even saintly
among us to so much as know what "the Law" is, much less adhere to it, which,
of course, makes all of us inadvertent, and more-or-less continuous, "
law-breakers," priming us as targets, to one degree or another, for selective
enforcement when any of us becomes too much an irritant to the current
political regime.
Meanwhile, real criminals are, of course, not nearly so confused,
perplexed, nor frustrated. They continue to victimize the rest of us, in most
cases, with virtual impunity. In fact, the only apprehension that consistently
haunts them, indeed the sole authentic deterrent to violent crime, is the
possibility of accidently selecting an armed "victim."
"The Law" flows not only from this flawed framework of so-called "
democratic process," but also from its underlying axioms of Justice, Dignity,
Morality, and Logic. And, when these foundational underpinnings are
disgracefully politicized, indeed hijacked, as is the case when conspicuously
unconstitutional legislation is passed as a result of either willful ignorance or
active criminality, ensuing laws, rules, and regulations are null and void
at the outset, having failed to meet requisite essentials to create a duty
of conscience to obey.
The bottom line brings us back to where we started:
You're on your own!
Regent Board members, and just about everyone else up the food-chain, could
not possibly care less about anyone but themselves. Beastly, vicious
massacrers will come and go, and they'll all still keep their jobs. This has
certainly been the case at VA Tech, on both counts!
Accordingly, we citizens have to make timely decisions which reflect our
own personal best interests, knowing full-well that sometimes we will be
mistaken, and that we will never have all information we believe we need.
Decisions have to be made regardless, and we can't afford to spend much
time thinking about what might have been!
There will be no relief, no divine guidance, and no guarantees. And, in
the end, we're all dead anyway. Between then and now, I, for one, will face
to the front and do my best to fulfill my destiny, as my limited connection
with divinity gives me the vision to see it, bearing full, personal
responsibility for everything I do, and everything I decide not to do.
/John