I had the honor of speaking to the Tellico Sportsman's Association on August 18th. These are my notes for that meeting:
Ladies and
gentlemen,
Please
repeat with me from the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths
to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
I have a
few things that I want to talk about. They all revolve around that unalienable
right to life. You see, if the right to defend life does not exist, the
right itself has little meaning.
But, I am
looking for audience participation, and welcome questions at any time.
Thank you,
Wes Hibbert, for inviting me to speak tonight. Thank you all for having me.
My name is
Liston Matthews. I started being a gun guy when I could count my birthdays on
my fingers. I grew up thinking that the Second Amendment applied to us all in
the United States. It wasn’t until recent years that I learned what the term
incorporation means. I learned that the Second Amendment didn’t really apply
until after the Heller
Decision of 2008 and the McDonald
Decision of 2010.
You can
find my writings at my Blogs: Knoxgunguy.com and Good Hill Press.
I formerly wrote at Knoxville Gun
Rights Examiner.
If you would like a copy of my notes with links to source documents, just send
me an email and ask.
Tonight, I
would like to touch on - - --
Gun law
history since 1994
Personal
Protection
We are in a
new different era in the United States. A confluence of events have come
together that remind me of the opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities:
It
was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
it
was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,
it
was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity (unbelief),
it
was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness,
it
was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,
we
had everything before us, we had nothing before us,
we
were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way. . . .
Modern
History
Now, here
are some things to think about from recent history -
The so
called Assault
Weapons Ban of 1994 limited several features on firearms, (e.g. detachable magazines and two or more of the following: collapsible
buttstock, bayonet lug, pistol grip, flash hider, grenade launcher) but also limited magazine
capacity on newly manufactured magazines to ten rounds.
About the
same time, many states started passing shall-issue handgun carry permit laws.
Many states
required that the handgun must be concealed. But not Tennessee.
The combination
of these events, the AW ban, and CCW passage fueled a market for small,
concealable handguns, like never seen
before.
Fast forward to 2008
On November
11, 2008, a friend from west Tennessee emailed me, and asked me for some advice
on AR-15 rifle kits. At the end of my reply, I wrote, BUY AMMO NOW. There must have been a bunch of people reading my email.
Within a
few days, you couldn’t find ammo anywhere.
LESSON LEARNED. Buy while supplies are
plentiful
Fast forward to 2009
The
Tennessee legislature removed the ban on handgun carry in parks, but gave local
governments the opportunity to opt out.
Fast forward to 2010
February
22, the 94 year firearms
ban in National Parks was rescinded.
Fast forward to 2012
Following
the December 12, 2012 school massacre at Newtown, CT, both CT & NY passed
new registration laws; yet in a massive act of civil disobedience, modern
sporting rifle owners have refused to obey the law and register those firearms.
At the same
time, Americans from all demographic groups have been buying guns like there is
no tomorrow.
So, on the
one hand, we have certain controlling elements of our society trying at every
turn to limit, and in some cases, ban firearms possession or CONFISCATE, as has
happened in Buffalo, NY following a pistol owner’s death - - while on the other
hand, citizens are buying firearms and ammunition like there is no tomorrow.
There were 946,528 NICS checks in July, up 16% from July last year.
Fast forward to 2014
Tennessee legalized
vehicle carry
Tennessee
rescinded the switchblade ban and no longer limits knife
length.
Fast forward to 2015
Tennessee
made parks carry legal in all state and municipal parks
I was
involved in getting Alabama to remove the gunbuster signs at Welcome Centers
and Rest Areas.
Personal
Protection
I mentioned
earlier that we are in a new era
From the
standpoint of personal protection, we face some dangers we have not faced in
the past---
● Feral humans, including
graduates of our sport fishing criminal justice system
● Jihadists
● Sexual predators (btw,
there are Three
Registered sex offenders in my zip code.
There are twenty
nine RSO’s in zip code 37774, which this facility is located in.)
● Mentally deranged people
who gravitate to GFZ’s
What to do
about these?
Be armed - - - all the time.
Carry a bandana and a ballpoint pen
Carry a cell phone
Think about this: police average response time is 10 minutes or
so, meaning,
Learn and practice Cooper’s color codes of awareness
You’re on your own!
Winning the
fight
Tom Givens
of Memphis has trained many people over the years in defensive handgun use. He
has had 65 graduates involved in gunfights. 62 won their fight. The
other three lost. They left their gun at home that day.
What if you
lose a gun fight
A fight,
whether it be a gun fight, knife fight or fist fight, is a chaos situation with
no guaranteed winner. Today is the day to seriously consider what happens toyour mortal soul if you lose.
Since
November 2008,
Permits from
4.6 million in 2007 to over 12.8 million this year
Permits
iincreasing at an ever- increasing rate. Over the past year, 1.7 million
additional new permits have been issued – a 15.4% increase in just one single
year.
5.2% of the
total adult population has a permit.
Five states
now have more than 10% of their adult population with concealed handgun
permits.
In ten
states, a permit is no longer required to carry in all or virtually all of the
state. This is a major reason why legal carrying handguns is growing so much
faster than the number of permits.
Since 2007,
permits for women has increased by 270% and for men by 156%.
Some
evidence suggests that permit holding by minorities is increasing more than
twice as fast as for whites.
Between 2007
and 2014, murder rates have fallen from 5.6 to 4.2 (preliminary estimates) per
100,000. This represents a 25% drop in the murder rate at the same time that
the percentage of the adult population with permits soared by 156%. Overall violent
crime also fell by 25 percent over that period of time.
States with
the largest increase in permits have seen the largest relative drops in murder
rates.
Concealed
handgun permit holders are extremely law-abiding. In Florida and Texas, permit
holders are convicted of misdemeanors or felonies at one-sixth the rate that
police officers are convicted.
Changing concealed carry
map
States with shall issue
laws have increased dramatically
since 1986.
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