I am excited to get the opportunity to be on Dave Elswick's NewsTalk Show on KARN 102.9 on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009, from 3:00-5:30 pm. The topic will be Concealed Carry Rights. I will be accompanied by Grant Exton, Executive Vice-President of ARCCA, and we will have by phone from Nashville, TN, Nikki Goeser, a young lady whose husband was murdered in front of 50 people, including her, and on videotape, by a known stalker. She and her husband were working a Karaoke show at a Sports Bar, and because of the law in Tennessee at the time, their concealed carry weapons were locked in their car.
Dave will be getting her story, not ony of the shooting, but of what has gone on since then, and how she helped get the law changed in Tennessee, and how she is spreading the word now, hopefully getting other states to change their laws to prevent a senseless tragedy such as the one that occurred to her and her husband.
Arkansas currently has a restrictive law, clearly in violation of The Second Amendment, which could easily get someone killed. My feelings are that if I have the right to carry, then I have the right to carry. Period. Government has no right to tell me where I can protect myself, and where I can't.
Broadly worded, blanket "guns and alcohol don't mix" laws leave way too many people caught in situations where they are unprotected, and at the mercy of lawbreakers who don't care what the law says about carrying guns. Gun Control has been shown time and again not to be effective at reducing crime; on the contrary, gun control simply disarms law-abiding citizens. Nation after nation has proven this, and yet head-in-the-sand liberal lawmakers keep jamming more and more restrictions on the right to Self-Defense. England, a nation already shown to have had a increase in crime since gun control took hold, has now shown where the slippery slope to insanity can lead once you start disarming the citizenry - The Home Office now has a new nationwide campaign called "Safe. Sensible. Social". I am not making this up - they have commissioned a new "safer" pint design, meant to eventually replace the traditional pint glass that officials complain can be used as a weapon. (I'm not kidding). Many in the pub industry expect the incorporation of shatter-proof plastics, which would change the feel and experience that pub customers desire. This is not to mention the cost, during this economy, of replacing all the glasses. The BBC reports that 126,000,000 pints of beer or ale are sold each week in the UK. That's 6,552,000,000 pints per year. The Home Office reports that crimes involving bottles or pint glasses amount to only 5,500 per year. And, yet, the Home Office wants to intervene! This is a ridiculously stupid example of government sticking its nose into private business and intruding on the liberty of its citizens. I mention it here because this the kind of nonsense that can happen when government sets about to disarm the people to "protect them". Poppycock! I have a feeing that if a drunk about to break a glass and attack someone with it, knew that the intended victim was likely to be carrying a gun, as was the bartender, then he'd think twice about it. By the way, don't forget, that in England a "pub" isn't just a bar, as we would think of it here. They are usually restaurants that also serve alcohol. Entire families go to pubs.
I am glad that we have organizations here in the US who are standing up and fighting to protect our Second Amendment Rights. The Second Amendment Sisters is an organization largely comprised of women, but anyone can join. We believe that in these perilous times, we need to be more prepared - not less. We believe that with violent crime at its current levels, it makes much more sense for a woman to be properly armed, and trained in the safe use of a gun, than to be left at the mercy of vicious rapists and thugs, hoping vainly that the police will be able to be everywhere they are needed and take care of every citizen. It is a mathematical impossibility for the police to be able to be at every crime scene when the moment of emergency happens. There aren't enough police, and they can't be everywhere. Dialing 9-1-1 doesn't cause a policeman to magically materialize where you need him.
We were guaranteed the right to bear arms, in the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, for good reasons. Let's not make the mistake of letting this precious right of self-defense be taken away from us.
For more information on Second Amendment Sisters, go to
www.2asisters.org .