So, David Lillehaug wants churches to be safe like schools, not dangerous like police stations?

Why do people care about conceal and carry? Are people scared?

I could really care less about the conceal and carry issue at all because I've lived in South Minneapolis since 1987 and have never felt threatened by anybody to the point where I felt I needed a gun. if somebody's going to shoot me, then it's probably my time to die. Simple as that. This may be a generalization but it seems like it's scared suburban people locked up in their cookie-cutter developments who think they need a gun.

The only people I've ever felt threatened by (besides our government) are the police. Maybe it would be good to have a gun for the next time I feel threatened by them, doncha think?

Congratulation, stacey. I lived in south Minneapolis in the 80s (I no longer live in Minnesota), just as the crack industry moved in. After a few robberies on my block, I started carrying because, unlike you, I refuse to be a lamb meekly led to slaughter, mumbling, "Oh well, I guess my time is up" as some low-life violently infringes upon my liberty. I came home one night to find a thug in my house, and by merely showing the weapon, I avoided an overtly violent confrontation. Golly, gee, I guess I should have simply said, "I guess my time is up" and allowed the thug to do whatever he wished! Your condenscension and idiotic stereotyping towards those who do not share your fatuously passive and fatalistic approach to living is pathetic.

I'm thinking about having a concealed carry theme party this summer Mitch.

To gain entrance, you got to be packing heat.

Actually, I just want to show off my new SIG P239 to make up for my lack of confidence and low self esteem.

Stacey,

It's not the first time I've heard your argument. Let me try to break it down for you:

"Why do people care about conceal and carry? Are people scared?"

There's one of the great conceits of the gun control crowd. Why do you assume fear is the motivation?

Is one "scared" of blizzards when one packs Snickers bars, blankets and candles before going on a winter trip? Is one "scared" of tornadoes when one goes to the basement during a tornado warning? No - one is being *prudent*.

Arming oneself (with the proper information and training) is a symbol of freely-chosen prudence. Nothing more.

"I could really care less about the conceal and carry issue at all because I've lived in South Minneapolis since 1987 and have never felt threatened by anybody to the point where I felt I needed a gun."

Well, good for you! I've lived in the inner cities of both Minneapolis and Saint Paul since 1985. I've lived by crack houses, next to disorderly houses, had roommates who turned out to be "disorderly" (dealt drugs from the living room), worked in bars, and for a stretch during the mid-eighties when I was a talk show host, got anti-semitic death threats (which, being right after the murder of Alan Berg, I took seriously, even though I'm not Jewish). I've had my house shot up by a drug dealer, and had my house broken into (and scared them off with - you guessed it - a gun).

" if somebody's going to shoot me, then it's probably my time to die. Simple as that."

And you have the freedom to make that choice. I'd appreciate the freedom to do the same.

By the way, I have two kids who live with me. Can I make that choice for them, too?

I made a choice, decades ago, when reading about the Holocaust and the Gulag: Never, Ever, EVER be a compliant sheep in the face of evil (which was, in fact, one of the reasons I switched from being a Democrat to the GOP). Anyone who presents me (or especially my children) a lethal threat IS evil; I will fight back. I'd appreciate it if the people to whom I entrust my children could, as well; "gun free schools" just make killers safer.

" This may be a generalization but it seems like it's scared suburban people locked up in their cookie-cutter developments who think they need a gun."

It's not only a generalization, it's a ridiculous and patronizing one. I live in the inner city, and have for 20 years. Most of the concealed carry activists I *personally* know either live or work in the city - but it doesn't matter. As hard as this is for some urban hipsters to agree to, the life of a person in the burbs is no less precious or worth defending than someone who lives in the Wedge and hangs out at Chino.

By the way - are you aware, Stacey, of the fundamentally racist roots of gun control?

"The only people I've ever felt threatened by (besides our government) are the police. Maybe it would be good to have a gun for the next time I feel threatened by them, doncha think?"

I would not advise it.

Swiftee,

SIG? Sa-Weet!

Stacey would be responding to all of you, except she ran afoul of a crack dealer downtown, who shot her three times in the chest.

She was remarkably zen about the whole thing, because "it was her time to die."

Re: Ryan at May 19, 2005 03:34 PM

More likely by a crack user, trying to steal her expensive environmentally-friendly bicycle, just guessing.

Crack dealers would be more likely to shoot another crack dealer. Shooting civilians is a big hassle, and just bad for business.

By "South Mpls" stacey means Kenwood or Linden Hills or Tangletown, the kind of place that white liberals and Star Tribune editorialists--but I repeat myself--live. No worries about crack dealers. (See, I can generalize too.)

Of course on my street in Whittier it's a different story.

Let's make a deal, stacey. If someone shoots you, I'll just think, hey, it was her time to die. If someone shoots me or someone close to me, I'll think it's HIS time to die.

Living in California (Sacramento area), I guess the Minnesota concealed carry issue is not relevant to me. Except I wish we had it here in California. When I lived in South Sacramento, my house got broken into, I had a gang fight in the front yard, a drive by shooting, a DEA raid of a drug dealer two doors down, and I was taunted and challenged outside the local grocery store. It got to the point that when I mowed my front lawn I was wearing my 9mm under a baggy sweatshirt in 105 degree weather.

Scared? Damn right I was. But I was lucky. I could eventually afford to get the hell out of there.

Nice post, Mitch. Don't worry -- at all -- about the permit holders having to tell police officers if they're armed; that was already in the law, and the amendment just repeats the requirement.

You're right to be concerned about the BCA certifying training groups (and, of course, a "group" can be a single trainer), but it's something to watch and help with, rather than worry about -- under the Pawlenty administration.

And, again, thanks for your great work in helping focusing attention on this issue -- it's one of the reasons why we won.

Lastly, yeah: get yourself into a class, whether it's with me (love to have you in one of mine, of course), or somebody else. The antis are going to start playing their games as soon as next week, and it makes a lot of sense to get a few steps ahead of them, both in personal terms, and in strategic terms.

More on that tonight, at the Loring Grill -- hope to see you there.

"By "South Mpls" stacey means Kenwood or Linden Hills or Tangletown, the kind of place that white liberals and Star Tribune editorialists--but I repeat myself--live. No worries about crack dealers. (See, I can generalize too.)

Of course on my street in Whittier it's a different story."

Hey BM, sorry but you just proved yourself to be as much of a generalizationalist as me.

I live at xxxx First Avenue South #4 Minneapolis MN 55404, which (if you really live in Whittier) you would know to be the heart of Whittier.

(MITCH ADDS: I redacted "Stacey's" address. To publish it would expose me to a level of liability I'm not really up for).

At least everybody else attacked me directly, you pussied out by assuming. You know where that gets people...

Hey BM, sorry but you just proved yourself to be as much of a generalizationalist as me.

Yes, except I was being sarcastic. That's why I wrote "see, I can generalize too."

"Hey BM, sorry but you just proved yourself to be as much of a generalizationalist as me.

I live at xxxx First Avenue South #x Minneapolis MN 55404, which (if you really live in Whittier) you would know to be the heart of Whittier.

(MITCH ADDS: I redacted the address number. Please don't put personal addresses on my site).

At least everybody else attacked me directly, you pussied out by assuming. You know where that gets people..."

So since we've established the directness of the questioning (hardly "attacks", speaking for myself), do we get favored with any answers?

I agree that the new concealed carry law has some provisions that need watching. Especially that one about notifying cops you come into contact with. If you are walking down the street and pass a cop, do you have to stop him and tell him that you are carryin, thus notifying anyone one else around? What is a cop going to think when he pulls you over for a traffic stop? If you tell him right away that you are carrying, the fellow might assume that you are threatening him, when all you are trying to do is conform to the law. What about plain-clothes officers? I see way too much discretion here.

Mark,

Joel Rosenberg (joel-rosenberg.com) explains the provision. It's not as bad as either of us feared - it's essentially identical to the old provision.

Mitch, thanks for the link to Joel. His little scenarios were a hoot. My worries were needless. I got a bit queasy when he was so effusive about Sen. Dean Johnson's help in passing the reinstatement of the carry law. Dean is my senator, and he was my pastor before that. I held my nose around the fellow for quite a while, until he finally, after a series of outbursts, bolted the GOP. I remember him calling me a fascist for chastising him on his making a bunch of little old lady party workers cry after calling them fascists for objecting to him supporting extensive gay rights. I will engage in some physical therapy to steady my quaking hand enough so that I can key in an e-mail message to Dean thanking him for his help. It will be difficult, but I think that I can manage.

Please do. As an activist on the issue, I try to keep other political matters out of my activism on the issue, and in this case, it's really pretty straightforward: without Senator Johnson's work on this, we would not have the MCPPA back right now. He could have screwed us in at least three ways that I know about, and he didn't -- although it sure looked to me like he might, at one point.

That's why I am, as you rightly say, effusive in my praise. I've praised Lynda Boudreau and Pat Pariseau, too, who have done superhuman work on the issue, even though I disagree with them on other issues, and have told them so. (Respectfully, and with affection, largely because it's the right way to treat friends, and because even where I disagree with Lynda and Pat, I do feel both respect and affection.)

That doesn't mean that you -- or I, or anybody else involved in the self-defense movement -- has to not be interested in or active in other political issues. But when politicians cooperate with us on this -- even when the cooperation isn't as good as we would have liked it to initially have been -- it is sensible and right, I think, to thank them.

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