Posted on 04/29/2012 6:33:07 AM PDT by marktwain
They stood side by side, staring intently at the iced tea jugs resting on the ground in front of them. The teacher. The widow. The student, the homemaker and the businesswoman.
It is a Saturday afternoon, and they are among more than two dozen people who have paid $50 to be here. To watch videos, listen to instructors and feel safer than before.
For just a few moments, it is virtually silent. And then comes an explosion of thunder as they begin raising pistols and blasting away at the doomed jugs before them.
• • •
Chances are, someone in your neighborhood carries a gun. Chances are also good that you will come across a stranger carrying a concealed weapon at some point today.
More than 900,000 Floridians are licensed to carry a concealed weapon, including more than 100,000 residents in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco counties alone.
In the bay area, that works out to about one out of every 25 people.
If those statistics come as a surprise, then you'll want to pay attention. Because the numbers are growing. Daily. Rapidly.
From July 2004 to July 2005, the number of new concealed weapon permit applications in Pinellas County was 1,554. By 2009-10, it had increased 383 percent.
They may not have those exact numbers at their fingertips at the Wyoming Antelope Club in Clearwater, but they are well aware of the trends. Seats for their $50 concealed weapons permit class (CWP) are often filled more than a month in advance.
And you may be interested to see who is sitting in those seats.
Men, yes. But almost half of the class in April was female. Hunters and gun enthusiasts, yes. But there were a fair number of people who had never before fired a gun.
(Excerpt) Read more at tampabay.com ...
When it comes to disarming the law-abiding public, any excuse will do.
In today’s Key West Citizen & Bait Wrapper:
7.3% of Keys residents can be packing
………… Monroe County ranks second in the state in the number of concealed carry weapons permits issued per capita, according to the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which administers the permits. There were 5,370 concealed carry holders in the Keys as of March 31, which was 7.3 percent of the population, according to the state agency's website.
The rankings were compiled this month by the News Service of Florida, which found Dixie County leading the state with one in 10 residents having concealed carry permits. Statewide, the per capita average is 4.2 percent. Calhoun, Gilchrist, Glades, Lafayette, Liberty, St. Johns and Sumter counties all have the lowest per capita concealed weapons rates, all under 3 percent.
"It does surprise me, because the demographic here is more live and let live and most of the demographic here doesn't seem to be the type to carry a weapon," McGee said of the Keys. "It doesn't seem to be something that people here think about." ……….
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$65.00 and the cost of a passport photo...
Well worth it..
Thank you for contacting Mayor Buckhorn. I will be sure he sees your message and I know he will appreciate you taking the time to write to share your views with him regarding the proposed Clean Zone during the Republican National Convention.
AKA, "piss off."
Lemme get this straight...
So, the Leftists are threatening to murder people who simply disagree with them - innocent, law abiding Americans who are not threatening them with sexual assault, severe bodily harm, or death but only a political disagreement?
These Leftist aren't peaceable people, simply yearning to breath free and mind their own business. There is no way any of these nuts should be issued a CCW. They are a looming public threat and need to be watched closely by the authorites!
You’re right. They’ve lost the fundamental nut of the issue, ie, “do people, as individuals, have the *right* to own guns?”
That has been answered in the affirmative. So now they’re going to try to move from making it against the law to being merely unethical to own guns. To do this, they have to express surprise, horror, shock, revulsion, etc that people outside those who they were ridiculing for standing up for the RKBA (old, fat, white males) would join the Old, Fat, White Males in ownership of guns.
I rather suspect that new gun owners didn’t just wake up one day and say “You know what I want? I want a S&W snubby! I hope it comes in at least three flavors!”
No, the new gun ownership is coming to the decision to own a gun because they look around and realize that the police a) have no duty to protect them, b) that many LEO’s are fundamentally and deeply corrupt, and c) when the danger in right in front of them and seconds count, the LEO’s are only minutes away.
I, for one, welcome these new gun owners into our groups, and I would recommend that other OFWG’s welcome the new gun owners too.
“It was only 20 years ago that the position on the left was about keeping guns out of the hands of the law abiding.”
It still is. They are just changing the narrative, not the goal.
Afterward, she handed my wife her digital camera and asked her to snap a couple of pix of us together. She stepped up beside me and slipped her arm around my waist and I draped mine over her shoulders. (FWIW, I'm in my 70s and she is in her 80s...)
When her hand reached my right side, she encountered my holstered HK through my sport coat, gave it a couple of pats, and quickly moved her hand away.
In that photo she had a surprised look on her face...
When I said, "Yep, that's what you think it is.", she quipped, "My husband's carrying too -- now I feel twice as safe!"
In that photo we both had big grins on our faces.. ;-)
~~~~~~~
I didn't feel it necessary to inform her that my wife was also packing... '-)
Texas ladies -- love 'em!! :-)
She got the one guy, who first pointed a gun at her. Probably didn’t get the second one. I wonder if the police managed to ID and arrest him as well.
I think the charge should have been attempted murder rather than attempted armed robbery. He did shoot at her after all... only to get gut shot himself. But that’s the risk robbers take were civilians are armed.
Here's one of the more extreme comments from the TampaBay.com comments section:
from rickscottisafascist4All teabaggers are lying, wholly self serving traitors. Don't believe a word he says. And if he gets even remotely aggressive with you, put a gun in his face, before he puts one in yours. They've done it before and after November, you can bet your life the teabaggers will turn violent again.
From the quoted comment: “They’ve done it before and after November, you can bet your life the teabaggers will turn violent again.”
I wonder if this poster could provide the source that documents this statement as fact. I bet NOT.
It sure is convenient to create your own history to make a point that advances your agenda.
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