Posted on 08/21/2016 3:42:30 AM PDT by real saxophonist
Each time there’s another shooting, bombing or killing that gets widespread attention, Kelly Cogswell knows she’s going to have a busy day.
As the concealed carry coordinator for Weld County, Cogswell reviews each permit application that comes though Weld County. When she first took the job in 2009, the county had issued roughly 2,500 concealed carry permits. Now the county has issued 17,800. So far this year, the county’s already issued 2,371 permits, almost as many as the county issued in those first 19 years.
That’s a lot of people packing guns.
Guns aren’t going away, even if some people wish they would. More and more people are buying guns and obtaining the legal right to carry the weapons with them almost anywhere they go.
“We have a completely new culture,” said Weld County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Cpl. Matt Turner.“It’s not bad; people want to protect themselves. I don’t blame them at all. I am one of those people. But we also have to make sure it’s done the right way.”
“We have a completely new culture. It’s not bad; people want to protect themselves. I don’t blame them at all. I am one of those people. But we also have to make sure it’s done the right way. — Cpl. Matt Turner, Weld County Sheriff’s Office spokesman
Even when he’s off duty, Turner admits he still carries a handgun. His wife and her best friend have guns, too, and the concealed carry permits to go with them.
“When I got out of the Army in 2009 I thought that people who wore tactical clothing every day were strange; I wore a uniform every day and just wanted to get out of it and wear shorts or blue jeans,” he said. “Now tactical clothing is a fashion statement ... it is popular to be ‘prepared.’ ”
Owning a gun
A gun doesn’t ensure an outcome, it provides choices. That’s how Anthony Navarro sees it.
With his friendly demeanor, crisp hair and khaki shorts, he looks like a community youth group leader — a youth leader who happens to be packing three guns, 91 bullets, a pair of knives, two tourniquets and a flashlight. He owns a gun store, Colorado Shooting Sports, 2435 8th Ave. in Greeley, a place that sells firearms, other weapons and classes on how to use them.
His original intent wasn’t to own a gun store. He wanted to teach classes on gun safety. But he sells guns now. His students told him they wanted a better, friendlier, more customer-oriented retail store. Navarro thought he’d try to create one.
Even with a successful firearms business, the educational side remains paramount; he’s got a money-back policy on all his classes.
Navarro’s been teaching his classes for about 11 years. If his students don’t like the class, they can ask for their money back. In all that time, no one has ever asked, he said.
Through that education, Navarro hopes he might be able to change a culture from the inside out, to help others see the importance of reserve and responsibility. That take on the gun business has brought him a fair measure of success. So much so that he’s looking at franchising his Colorado Shooting Sports business.
Guns, and the choices they provide, are important to him. And as he sees it, American gun owners are their own worst enemies at times. When they run their mouths off, when they posture and use guns as symbols of masculinity, it contributes more to the arguing than as a solution. Pro-gun and pro-gun control sides are both yelling so loud that no one is hearing each other, he said.
He admits it’s only a matter of when, not if, a gun he sells at his store gets used in a crime. But the choices a gun can offer, especially in the hands of a trained operator, make the business worth it to him.
“There are thousands of women that I’ve trained,” he said. “I sleep at night knowing that I gave them choices … when you take guns away, you take away their choices.”
The desire to teach gun safety stays with him. Teaching is a part of who he is. Even as he explained his thoughts and views on gun control, he grabbed a dry-erase marker and started drawing out diagrams to help illustrate his point.
In his mind, teaching people about when to use guns — and even more importantly in his mind, when not to use them — might help cut through all the yelling and find a common ground of understanding. At least that’s what Navarro hopes.
A CHOICE AND A RESPONSIBILITY
On a weekend day, 53-year-old Erie resident Nick Ehrhart and his wife, Coreda, took a tactical pistol class offered by Navarro.
“We have a responsibility to protect ourselves and others,” Ehrhart said.
Ehrhart lives in Erie and commutes to work in Denver. During that same drive he’s had people point a gun at him on the interstate. He didn’t feel comfortable in his day-to-day life anymore. He decided he wanted to carry a gun. He also wanted a good education on how to use it. After asking around, he heard about Navarro’s classes at Colorado Shooting Sports.
Ehrhart grew up around guns, where he’d see hunting rifles in truck windows and pistols carried on the hips of folks around Steamboat Springs. Even growing up around them, he didn’t get a gun until his kids grew older and left home. A few years later his wife decided she wanted to follow in his steps.
“My husband got the concealed-carry license a couple years ago, and I didn’t really have any interest,” she said. “Then just based on what I saw on the news and the political status that we have now and all the talk about changing gun laws, I decided that it was probably a good idea to do it. I kind of feel like I have a duty to carry, for some of those people who don’t think that they should, or can’t.”
Having a gun won’t make every situation safer, Nick said, but it makes him feel safer. If someone pulls a gun on him during his commute, he’s not going to take out his gun too.
“No one is comfortable with a gun pointed at them,” he said noting that his concealed carry doesn’t change that.
If he sees someone attacking someone else with a makeshift club or a knife, then maybe the gun will be enough to stop them, he said.
“I’d rather be the person who at least did something,” Coreda said. “That’s the biggest reason. I feel like it’s almost a duty or a responsibility.”
The fear of guns
It’s easy for people to say if they were nearby when something bad happened that they could have stopped them with their gun, said Tom Mauser. But when police show up and everyone there is shooting, how can they tell the difference between the good and bad guys?
Mauser became an outspoken advocate for gun control in Colorado after his son, Daniel, died in the Columbine High School shooting.
About two weeks before his son was killed, Mauser remembers Daniel asking him if he knew there were loopholes in the Brady Bill, a U.S. law that requires background checks for guns.
“It was a very short conversation,” Mauser said. “I didn’t really get engaged in the conversation. But then (Daniel) was killed by a gun that was purchased through a loophole in the Brady Bill.”
Even with that Mauser’s not completely against guns. He just wants to look at the big picture, at education and maybe slowing down the rush to arm every citizen in the name of protection.
“I think most people in America agree with and support a basic right to bear arms, but they, by a strong majority, believe in regulations and restrictions,” Mauser said.
“This new movement that we’ve been seeing of promoting more concealed carrying and even opening carry, I’m opposed to that movement. When you open carry, you scare the hell out of people.”
He talks about finding ways to ensure the people who shouldn’t have guns are prevented from getting or buying them. People should get an education before they make a decision to buy into the gun culture.
“When we hear about cases of domestic violence and suicide and workplace shootings, in many cases those guns were bought by people who bought them for protection,” he said. “They were doing what my opponents would say they should be doing: arming themselves. But it goes wrong.”
It’s a bad guy with a gun
Greeley Police Chief Jerry Garner doesn’t see the country’s growing gun culture as bad. He reserved that word for criminals who, among other things, are willing to use guns against officers and peaceful residents.
Although more guns also means there’s easier access to guns, even for those who shouldn’t legally have them, in Garner’s mind, if criminals want a gun, they’ve basically always been able to get them and probably always will.
That’s also the philosophy of State Sen. John Cooke, the county’s former sheriff.
“You know, if you look since 1990, violent crime and gun crime have dropped 50 percent, and yet gun ownership has increased exponentially,” Cooke said. “I think last year they sold millions of guns. The crime rate has dropped, but gun ownership has increased significantly.”
What law enforcement needs then is prosecutors who seek maximum penalties for crimes committed with guns and judges willing to throw the book at those criminals, Garner said. But even if that stops criminals from using guns, there are a lot of ways those with ill intent can hurt others.
“I would love to be able to go about doing my duties without a gun,” Garner said. “But realistically in America that’s not going to happen in my lifetime because of the culture of bad guys with guns. Not the gun culture, but the culture of bad guys with guns. Guns are not evil. The people who misuse them are.
“Some folks tell you the solution is to pick up all the guns, that’s not realistic, that’s not going to happen. With the billions of guns that are out there in America, the guns aren’t going away, so what we have to figure out is how to deal with the people who misuse guns.”
I got my concealed carry permit 18 months ago. I carry a S&W .357 wherever I go now. I think of it as an insurance policy. You never want to have to use it but it’s there if you need it.
“When you open carry, you scare the hell out of people”
Marko
Anthony Navarro is a lying scumbag. The "gun culture" has ALWAYS taught the "importance of reserve and responsibility".
This article is just another piece of antigun propaganda masquerading as "rational gun control discussion".
I have my CCW through Weld County, CO.
Sheriff Cook was actually in the house when I got my fingers printed.
He told me his objective before leaving office was to legally approve as many CCW as he could.
Good things.
'Culture of guns'. Whatever. Dismissive of the nom du jour. Whatever they want to call it.
Anthony Navarro is good to go. I've trained with him. A 'lying scumbag' he is not.
I have CCW and a S&W .357 but I’m darned if I know how to carry that wheelgun concealed.
Now my CZ .25 auto? Always in my pocket with nine pills ready.
National gun culture? I certainly hope so.
Let's drill down to the real cause. What actually needs to be looked at if we are contemplating BANNING anything is the SSRI anti-depressant drugs that have known side effects of causing suicide and homicidal thoughts. In practically every one of these incidents the perpetrators are on these drugs. (plus some 20 of so solders a day committing suicide!) In addition to CAUSING these tragic events even 60 Minutes had a segment about them that concluded they “have no therapeutic effect”.
I hope this ruffels some feathers as the truth usually does.
As we were walking back to the truck, a big ol black feller come walking up to us...”Say main, got any jumper cables main?” He kept saying this over and over. After answering...no, he asked for a ride. All the while getting closer and closer. Told my girlfriend...go on to the truck.
I squared up in an attempt to keep him from getting any closer to her....then I hear, “hey...you! What do you want from him?” Praise the living Lord...a plain clothes cop walked from the darkness and approach us both.
I just about got thumped by a thug in Downtown Houston. NEVER AGAIN! As soon as Texas made concealed carry the law of the land...I got my CHL. I will never ever ever ever feel that helpless again. We were lucky that time. A cop working a 2nd job as security. Next time, may not have been so lucky. There are so many thugs out there that will kill a guy for a $20 dollar bill. Sad, but true.
National politeness culture.
Scary story. And good for you.
As for the 20 dollar thing, I know. I drove a livery.
They dont live like humans in the projects. Liberal elites NEED to visit them.
Urine, needles and worse in the hallways. Drug deals and prostitute out in the open. blech.
Local news sites...click2houston, day after day, multiple shootings, carjackings, bank/store robberies, driveby shootings...you name it.
Ridiculous the crime in American cities.
wow. You know i dont follow local news but i wonder what the crime rate is in the mexican/black area of staten island and if it’s the blacks/mexicans or both committing them.
There’s a huge area where the mexicans wait for trucks to pull by who need them for work. Never a black guy in the whole group lol.
If they’re such hard workers, why does Mexico suck!!!!
Scary events are not just in bad parts of town. I was at a drive in window of a Chase Bank in the Galleria area recently. I was getting cash with a check from that bank and I am a signer on the account. The girl (black) at the window kept asking for more and more identification from me while conferring with another black cashier.
Finally my gut told me I should leave so I took my drivers license and check and went to another bank.
That evening on channel 2 news I saw where 2 older women were followed home from that Chase Bank and robbed after cashing a check at that window.
A few weeks later a friend told me that that same bank was closed because it had been robbed.
19 years since they started issuing permits.
Anybody who lends his name to this kind of propaganda is automatically a lying scumbag, no matter how nice he may be in person.
"Navarro hopes he might be able to change a culture from the inside out, to help others see the importance of reserve and responsibility.
Lie. The "gun culture" has always taught "reserve and responsibility" in the use of guns.
"When they run their mouths off, when they posture and use guns as symbols of masculinity, it contributes more to the arguing than as a solution.
Lie. The is a straight regurgitation of antigun BS. I have yet, in my 60 years of gun ownership, met ANY gun owner of these characteristics.
"Pro-gun and pro-gun control sides are both yelling so loud that no one is hearing each other, he said.
Lie. The "pro-gun-ownership" side has long tried to approach things from the point of "reasonable discussion", and gotten nowhere. This is just another justification for the anti side to indulge in the "incremental regulation" method to get to a total civilian ban. No other end result is, in their minds, permissible. And Navarro's "position" is right in the middle pushing their side.
Good. We need a culture of vigilant, informed, armed citizens who are actively invested in society’s preservation and future.
Pretty sure the true statistics are well disguised and or hidden so folks in this country cannot see just how bad it truly is.
For example...the term, “non-hispanic white” is used. Take a gander at many news stories...they will omit the color of the person just as they often do when it's a muzzie. Eventually it comes out, but one can read how they attempt to veil.
>>If they’re such hard workers, why does Mexico suck!!!!<<
It is beginning to happen here in America as well. Just took a while longer. The Oligarchs control everything. Very little is passed through the economy to the poor. There is few in the middle class in Messyco. Payoffs/bribes are a way of life in Messyco. Rarely anything gets done w/o someone getting paid under the table.
You’re right, we are headed that way. That’s why Trump has to win.
I drove the livery overnight and had many blacks and mexicans in the cab in the wee hours.
I would choose a mexican every time. Because they’re great guys? No.
But they were almost always either going to or coming from work, or going to get drunk at a mexican club.
They are HUGE drinkers, and some in my car were VERY drunk and did get into fights outside the clubs and sometimes once they left the cab, but never in the cab or with me.
Funny thing, they dont give a #### about citizenship. They dont love or hate America. It’s a place to make a buck or escape gang hits.
But they’re reproducing at a ferocious rate and need to go fast. I dont want to hear that nonsense that now ALL those kids are citizens.
. If someone pulls a gun on him during his commute, he’s not going to take out his gun too.
Uh, so what is the point of carrying a gun then?
What law enforcement needs then is prosecutors who seek maximum penalties for crimes committed with guns and judges willing to throw the book at those criminals, Garner said.
^^^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^
Instead, we have a president who pardons them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.