Gun Save Life New Shooter Training
Courtesy Guns Save Life

[Instructor Michael] Cargill returned to a case that had riveted Austin itself. Daniel Perry, an Army sergeant shot and killed Garrett Foster, an armed Black Lives Matter demonstrator in July. Some people at the scene have said Foster didn’t raise the AK-47 rifle he was carrying, and that Perry, who had made statements on social media critical of protesters, seemed to use his car as a weapon. But Cargill sided with the sergeant. Perry, he said, was justified. Horner, who had recently been watching YouTube videos that dissect shootings, agreed.

“He made a turn and all these guys were in the street,” Horner told me later. “I think that he was justified because they started banging on his car and that guy’s walking up with an AR. That’s pretty scary.”

[Student Noah] Horner understands protesting during the day, he said, but after the sun sets, people who want to cause trouble show up. He tries to avoid downtown at night. He’s from Oklahoma, where he attended college in a small town that didn’t see much crime. Arriving in Austin, he said, “immediately you could just tell there’s evil people here.”

But if those fears seem to echo recent Republican talking points about the capital city and a host of other big cities around the country, Horner also said he thinks “this is a pretty important year to vote blue.”

Like Horner, [Zachary] Harris said that there are things about both the major political parties that he and Taylor disagree with. But they’ve been turned off by what feels to them like a president steering the country toward civil unrest. “We’d like a president that would at least not push people to political violence,” he said.

Harris was disconcerted by how some of the people in the license to carry class “almost sounded eager” to shoot someone. But Cargill also dedicated much of the class to discouraging people from drawing their weapons in tense situations. A license to carry is supposed to help you protect yourself and your family, Cargill said—not turn you into a one-person armed security force. Don’t chase down the suspect in a convenience store robbery you happen to witness, he said. Use your phone to take pictures and call the police instead. The last option should be a gun, he explained, because “once you use that gun your life is going to change forever.”

“Do we shoot to kill in Texas?” he shouted. When no one responded, he said it again. “Do we shoot to kill in Texas?”

A few people said yes.

“No!” he said. “We shoot to end the threat.”

– Ciara O’Rourke in They’re Afraid. They’re Buying Guns. But They’re Not Voting for Trump.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

50 COMMENTS

  1. Say what you want about how “new” gun owners is a good thing, Leftists owning firearms will only cause more problems.

    • The problem is the way the law is being enforced. When the system allows trouble makers to do what they want, and then punishes victims for defending themselves; then yes allowing troublemakers to have guns is a bad thing.

      Of course they then push for making rules to allow only people who are not going to be troublemakers to have guns. Troublemakers as defined by them, and as predicted to be in the future by them.

      • Just like leftists supported the First Amendment while it was convenient for them, then turned against it when it was no longer in their best interests, we know they hate the Second Amendment. They will use it only when it is to their advantage and then quickly oppose it when they want to disarm their opponents. They exploit the good intentions of people who actually support the Constitution.

    • So, the 2A doesn’t apply to Leftists?

      Just askin’, for a friend.

      Dude, that is some SERIOUSLY messed up thinking.

      I kinda think I don’t want you on “my” side, you”re kind of a fascist @$$hole.

      But you do you.

      • “. . .you”re kind of a fascist @$$hole . . .” If you want to use the word as an epithet It would help if you knew what f-a-s-c-i-s-m means before you start tossing the term around. Fascism is more directly related to progressive-leftest dogma being espoused by Democrats than to the free-market-capitalist based ideology favored by conservative Republicans. Just sayin’ . . .

      • That all depends what the leftist wants a firearm for. If it is to defend themselves and their families, then I have no problem with their second amendment rights. If it is to attack those who they deem to be sexist racist Nazis then no, I don’t want them anywhere near a firearm. The lefts definition of who their enemies are is quite open to interpretation.

      • First your straw man argument “So, the 2A doesn’t apply to Leftists?”

        Show me in my statement where I said the 2A doesn’t apply to Leftists?

        My statement was “Leftists owning firearms will only cause more problems.” That is not only historically true, but something you don’t want to bet against for the future.

        Leftist and leftist supporters are responsible for most of the violence, shootings, and murders. They were almost exclusively responsible for the six months worth of riots that killed over 30 and caused billions in damages. They are also almost exclusively the mass shooter.

        A summary of the article/story above;

        ….Leftists are upset that Leftists are Burring, Looting, Murdering (BLM) so they are buying a gun to protect themselves from Leftists as they vote for even more Leftism….. (SERIOUSLY messed up thinking, right?)

        So yes, while anyone from any political persuasion can be violent, it is much more likely to come from someone who is a leftist or supports leftism. From the story “Harris was disconcerted by how some of the people in the license to carry class “almost sounded eager” to shoot someone.”

        Again, Leftist owning firearms will only cause more problems.

        ( I take no pride in these facts nor do I enjoy them, but they are regrettably true )

      • “So, the 2A doesn’t apply to Leftists?”

        It does in my book and it does as pertains to the US Constitution. All sorts of things come to mind: equal protection under the law, presumption of innocence until proven guilty, even applying all the (unConstitutional) firearms laws and regs already in the mix- if one has no criminal history or some sort of domestic abuse conviction, isn’t crazy, etc., etc, Americans should be able to keep and bear arms. Black, whilte, red, gay, straight, you name it.

        Now, if someone is using arms illegally, that’s another matter. The more simple we keep things the fewer loopholes we create.

  2. Quote from article: “We’d like a president that would at least not push people to political violence”

    This tells me they are both snowflakes who watch only major media (the democrat’s Pravda) and are well indoctrinated socialists.

    It is not impossible that they are AntiFa members who are arming up for the coming revolution they seek.

    Austin is a known left wing city, a cancer growing in Texas.

    • While true it is also potentially the first step of shedding Democrats ideas that people are dependent on the state. Imagine the shock that makes people who think the police will save them buy a gun.

      Maybe I am an optimist though.

      • Definitely an optimist, possibly even to the point of naïveté. It’s 2020; a basic prerequisite to being a rank and file Democrat voter is a truly remarkable capacity for both hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance. At the absolute MOST, 5% of these new gun owners will slowly start to realize they’ve been wrong. Of those, maybe 5% will actually shift to our political side, and nobody is going to do an about face overnight. Even the few who are willing to be honest with themselves will be YEARS away from voting differently. So no, there’s no way this will result in a surge of true 2A support

  3. As an instructor if I know your political, religious, sexual affiliation then you aren’t really doing what your supposed to.
    Show up properly dressed, leave that at home and stay focused. This is dangerous and distractions aren’t welcome.
    Your there to learn. Anything else your wrong. Nobody cares. That not the agenda.

    • The classes i’ve taken, we’ve never talked politics. Probably best that students not get angry/frustrated about politics especially the kind we have on CA. We’ve only talked about gun laws, local and personal incidents, and safety.

  4. It sounds like he’s blaming the president for the riots and destruction. Kinda like an abuser blaming the spouse for the abuse(“she made me hit her”)

  5. Only the most moronic could buy the “President” as being behind the violence. All of the people rioting, looting, and burning things are Demonrats, or Antifa, or just plain socialist/communist agitators! Proof is that when Dems saw it hurt them in the polls, they finally, after more than 100 days of silence. Only the less intelligent could believe tge mexia’s ” the real threat is white supremacists,” bullshit.

  7. Like any leftist, they think their guns won’t be confiscated. But, they should be reminded that after the revolution, the useful idiots meet the same fate as the enemy.

    • “Like any leftist, they think their guns won’t be confiscated will gladly get rid of their guns once Trump is out of office.”

      FIFY

  8. IMO…If you are stupid enough to fall for marxist media slander and libel and vote for biden/harris then you are way too stupid to be fooling around with firearms. Firearms do not belong in the hands of people who stand for nothing and fall for anything. Sure sign of a guaranteed accident waiting to happen.

    • I don’t see a problem. Horner already came to his own conclusion about the very sad Garrett Foster shooting, as well as his ability to do his own research… it won’t be long (at least for him)

      • Horner is some random dorm room guy with an opinion and not a player. When doing things that are stupid like foster and his wheelchair bound girlfriend did by arming up and driving for hours to protest like residue from the sixties you can expect to find trouble. Nothing “sad” about avoidable stupidity so why cater to it by putting lipstick on a pig? Sad is someone afflicted with a disease or involved in an accident, etc. Get real.

  9. “We’d like a president that would at least not push people to political violence,” he said.

    Yep! Just roll over and give the Left what they want, no matter how outrageous, no matter how violent they are. That’ll surely work.

    Didn’t Churchill have something to say about appeasement and crocodiles??

    • This instructor is either a traitor or a moron. I live in the Austin area (thankfully outside Austin), and I am glad I now know who this guy is so I can avoid him like the plague.

  10. Antifa and other radical groups are the start of this They block traffic and threaten people on highways and streets. We must have law and order. Peace period

  11. Once a person, leftist or otherwise, goes through all the legal steps to buy and carry a firearm they will no longer be able to buy that lie about guns being easier to get than books.

    And unless they are miner49er levels of unaware they will know who has been lying to them about gun control. And if they are being lied to about that what else are they being lied to about.

    Baby steps.

  12. Golly on May31(coincidentally my birthday) it would’ve been just swell if the BlackLootersMurder( who came in SEVEN bus loads to my hooo)had been strapped!!! I’ve armed my beautiful brown wife. Eff the BLM & Antibrain a-hole’s… Free Kyle🇺🇸

  13. From the linked article. “If they do end up having to pull the trigger, he told the class, the first call should be to police. But it should be brief, and after they hang up, they should immediately call their lawyer. A lawyer, he said, would protect them against making incriminating statements. ”

    When you call 911 they can keep your phone active without your knowledge after you hang up. So if you then call your lawyer it will be recorded as will anything you say even if you don’t call anyone else.

  14. There are a lot of people who are condemning these people because they don’t follow an ideology but yet are going to be exercising their 2A rights. They ran a story about the increase in Cali, one of the most openly gun hostile states, and the push of new gun owners there.

    Many of these people were pushed over the edge into buying guns simply because of the political atmosphere. To say that Trump isn’t a part of a reason for that push with his candid endorsements of Alt-Right and white supremacy groups makes you no better of an imbecile than someone who laps up the filth from CNN.

    Look at the demographics of these stories that have popped up since Trumps tenure. Its not the white guy in the backwoods of a republican state, its the women or ethnic minorities such as blacks (and asians especially who have seen unprecedented racism towards them due to Coronavirus) who are pushing the extreme surge in gun buying rates in democratic states due to the lawlessness in quite a few states.

    These new groups will push a wave of new gun owners in new demographics that haven’t traditionally been there or with the 2A group. Notice the complete silence from Democrats on the 2A issue, its a non-starter with many people who would openly vote against Biden because of that issue. With a conservative majority on the Supreme Court that will push hopefully a strict scrutiny ruling soon, democrats don’t have a path forward. If you’re in fear of a court packing scenario, Biden and most democrats understand that it will result in pushing them out of power with extreme prejudice, and also pushing gun legislation will also result in the same.

    Embrace this new wave of gun owners, bring them into the fold and educate them on their rights. Present the issues that matter and leave your own prejudice out of it. Many Californians got to experience this first hand, and maybe after this horrific president is out of power, Republicans can move back to MODESTY and push the 2A movement forward

    • JustUseCommonSense,

      … [President Trump’s] candid endorsements of Alt-Right and white supremacy groups …

      Newsflash: President Trump has never endorsed Alt-right nor white supremacy groups. If I am wrong — and I am never wrong — provide links to videos or tweets where Trump said otherwise.

      And for the love of all that is good and decent, please don’t ask me to provide links where President Trump has condemned Alt-right or white supremacists — those are readily available and easy to find.

      Disclaimer: I am most certainly NOT a Trump fan-boy. I AM a truth fan-boy.

    • JustUseCommonSense,

      … maybe after this horrific president is out of power, Republicans can move back to MODESTY and push the 2A movement forward …

      Another newsflash: being meek, mild, and modest is a horrible idea given that Democrats are out for blood (literally in many/most cases).

      Widespread bold, courageous, and righteous action is the only way forward at this point.

      • Has he ever condemned them? Yes, I won’t refute that.

        Has he callously turned his head the other way or dodge the question fiercely and used rhetoric that in no way denounces them when being immediately pressed on the issue? Yes, and that also cannot be refuted.

        This whole spilling blood trash is ignorance. That is Alt-Right talk no different than the same stuff coming from democrats would be Antifa talk. This is somehow going to win supporters to the cause how?

        Republicans are on the verge of losing the Senate and got trashed out the House (there isn’t going to be an improvement there this election) and Trump is getting pummeled and lets be honest, there is no silent majority here this time, the demographics that he won are not behind him as strong this time and he is struggling in republican strongholds that should be landslides. We are staring down a serious threat of an all blue Legislative and Executive branch…

        Ask yourself where the Republican Party is going after Trump? Is it more radical alt-right garbage? If so, there isn’t going to be another Republican in power for quite some time. You think the radical left is going to push its way? Absolutely not either, people won’t tolerate that garbage either.

    • JustUseCommonSense says “..Many of these people were pushed over the edge into buying guns simply because of the political atmosphere…”

      Political atmosphere? You mean the 6 months of nonstop rioting that, killed over 30 people and caused billions of dollars in property damage, that was EXCLUSIVELY caused by Leftist groups BLM and Antifa?

      That political atmosphere?

      Hmmm…So let’s see if we can sum this up;

      “These people” aka Leftists are upset that Leftists are Burring, Looting, Murdering (BLM) so they are buying a gun to protect themselves from Leftists as they vote for even more Leftism?

      Insanity doesn’t begin to describe your Leftist “common sense”.

  15. If The People vote socialist we’ll lose a darn sight more than just one right. In reality, the government will operate as always, just under The Socialist Party guidelines. We “might” have to give up some rights and freedoms for the good of all. Other than that, what could go wrong?

    • How about living under a police state? If you read the Green New Deal proposals (along with the related discussions on the ‘net) it’s hard to imagine the kinds of “transformational” changes discussed can ever be accomplished without vastly expanded police powers aimed at enforcing the agenda. This is America so you can expect that 50 percent or more of the population will quietly or actively oppose the changes. You’ll need a police state to control the populace.

      • Police states don’t work well when the populace is armed. Expect step one to be an attempt to confiscate all firearms. Pretty sure that will start a real civil war.

  16. in every leftist revolution in history the first group exterminated are the early supporters and insiders.

  17. Teaching a “progressive” to shoot is like giving a child a hammer and turning him loose in a nitroglycerine factory.

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