I recently wrote about how a former Marine fought off an attempted home invasion. Donnie managed to fire three shots. No one was hit. I ran into Donnie again at a local gas station. A large, powerful black man, he makes quite an impression. We shook hands and I told him that the article had been published. He hadn’t seen it yet; he is in the middle of a move. He didn’t say, but I suspect it was a decision precipitated by the aborted home invasion. He had lost my card in the packing shuffle. He asked me: How can I bear arms? . . .
I was openly carrying when I met him. I was directly demonstrating the right to keep and bear arms when we met again. I believe that prompted the question.
It was a simple, direct, question. People who are immersed in the gun culture often fail to understand that people who are not so inclined do not know the intricacies and subtleties of what it takes to go about armed in today’s society.
Donnie was trained as a Marine. He knows how to use firearms. But he is only a peripheral member of the gun culture.
I gave him another card and explained the requirements to obtain a carry permit in Texas. I asked if he had access to the Internet. He said he did. I told him to do a search for concealed carry Texas. I said that he’d need to take a class and pay the State about a hundred dollars. He could then get the permit. I asked if he had any felony or misdemeanor domestic violence convictions. He did not.
There are some noteworthy exceptions where you can bear arms without a permit: on your own property, in your car, and while hunting. To generally bear arms in Texas, you need a carry permit. I trust that Donnie will follow-up on legally bearing arms in Texas.
Bringing peaceful, responsible black people into the gun culture is a way of showing them that they are also protected by the Constitution. Unfortunately, permit fees and classes disproportionately make it harder for people of limited means to obtain permits.
For a great many reasons, black people are disproportionately in the lower income brackets. The Crime Prevention Research Center has found that a $10 increase in permit fees decreases the number of permit holders by about one half of a percent of the adult population. Each $10 increase in fees reduces the percent of adults with permits by about a half a percentage point.
There is a movement to bring Texas into the permitless or “Constitutional” carry club. It has some backers in the legislature and activists supporting it. It may take a while, but Texas is rolling back infringements on the Second Amendment that have been in place for a hundred and forty years.
©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Link to Gun Watch
Culture is only trumped by experience.
A poll tax by any other name.
…is an unconstitutional infringement?
We should welcome all people until they prove otherwise.
At my range most new shooters welcome any hints and advice but he had a few difficult prospective members that were asked to leave. It was a combination of their flippant attitude and mentioning recent use of firearms prohibited in my part of the world.
Since then we have created a series of “Hereford boathouse” questions (reference from the movie Ronin) to sort out the wannabes from the serious prospective members.
Being honest, I prefer teaching complete beginners because I don’t have to make them unlearn the bad habits they picked up previously.
“We should welcome all people until they prove otherwise.”…plus infinity…someone’s skin color should make no more difference than their eye color…asSholes come in all shapes, sizes and colors….learning to recognize them is an important life skill…
“If you meet an asshole in the morning, you’ve met an asshole. If you meet assholes all day, maybe YOU’RE the asshole.” Raylan GIvens – Justified.
A motto to live by. I’ve always pointed that out to folks: if everyone you meet is an a-hole, you’re probably an a-hole. This week though, I think I may have turned into an a-hole.
The gun culture is racially blind.
Exactly. I don’t care if someone is white, black, brown, red, yellow, purple, blue, green, polka-dotted, striped, paisley, or plaid as long as they respect other people’s life, liberty, and property.
Welcome aboard!
…All are equally worthless!!!!
/channelingRLeeErmey
That is a bold, broad, blanket statement.
I wish it were true. Unfortunately, the gun culture is made up of humans, with human shortcomings.
We should all do our part to make that statement as close to truth as possible.
Gun culture is, sure. But not all of it’s members are.
Conversely, it has been my impression that those urging more and more gun control are filled with racist fear.
So, it was a Confederate after all.
So now, will he be more careful about which holster that he slips his gun into?
How does that blues song go? –
“Last night, while he was slippin’ out, somebody else, was slippin’ in…”
EDIT – Just looked it up, it was Mr. Buddy Guy…
First being a Retired Marine, Semper Fi, Second with reference to being an AHole you might want to reflect on that statement…You might also want to consider that a Gun Culture can be in many forms to include responsible to irresponsible, just watch a few youtube videos…and to “Bear Arms” is a association to a weapon of any type not just firearms…The “Gun Culture” is relative to the instruments purpose…it is used in a very “impressionable manner” where as txting while driving a 2000 pound projectile seems to be benevolent until a Death occurs but not advertised…and the Gun Culture impression has been demonized by educational social manipulation…through entertainment but without consequence…
“People who are immersed in the gun culture often fail to understand that people who are not so inclined do not know the intricacies and subtleties of what it takes to go about armed in today’s society”
I am no longer surprised when I am conversing with a non-gun owner the preconceptions of what they think someone has to do to own a gun.
• “You need a license for that, right?” – In NV you don’t need licensing at all
• “I heard it really hard to get a pistol permit” – The only ‘permit’ you need in NV is for concealed carry. Clark county abolished its ‘permitting’ (blue card handgun registration) last year.
• “Do you have a permit to carry that gun?” – See above
etc., etc.
So much of this comes from popular television where it is represented that people have to be licensed and get permits for anything dealing with a gun. Also, we get a LOT of folks from NY, NJ, CA, etc. that move here from their draconian temples of socialist nirvana. They are perhaps justifiably confused.
We’re not as open as our neighbors next door in AZ, and the constant migration of socialists fleeing their former utopias to escape their self-created problems continues to create those same problems here.
Even gun owners often don’t know what the local law says. Friend of a friend who is FOID card holder and owns several firearms wanted to sell one of his revolvers. The price seemed right to me so I offered to buy it. It took a lot of persuading and some Google search to convince him that he doesn’t have to “unregister” and I register the Super Redhawk since in Illinois there is no gun registration. And that federal registration is actually prohibited by law. He argued that the 4473 form is in fact the application to register. Yes, I realize it kinda sorta is but not really until the UBC is implemented.
He just couldn’t wrap his head around idea of government not knowing where all legal guns are at any given time. “But in all movies and news reports they always say the gun was/wasn’t registered!”
I personally have difficulty understanding a Marine who doesn’t at least wanted to tool up after separation. I mean me and all my friends did. Granted, that may be due to my endless heckling of them all regarding their paltry armaments….
As a Texas veteran of the Marines, I only pay $25 for the initial fee, half that for relocation reissues and $25 for the every 4 or 5 year renewals. Texas takes better care of vets than most.
Say whut? I don’t seem to be aware of that. Care to expound where that applies? Retired AF here, I’m thinkin’ that counts.
It applies in the entire state of Texas, so long as you were honorably discharged. Hooah!
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