Actually, I didn't sell it. I exchanged it for 7 boxes of 9mm ammo for the Beretta Nano subcompact pistol I purchased at the same time. Why did I purchase a handgun? When I was teaching school I supplemented my income by being the town deputy marshal. During that time I was called to events which resulted in nearly a dozen dead people. I realized that when seconds counted for people in dire emergencies I was only minutes away. It was also during this period of time that the SCOTUS ruled in at least two cases that finally reached its court, that the police have NO obligation to protect any particular citizen, even if they KNOW that that citizen is in grave, lethal danger! It made a mockery of the quote that used to be on many police cars, and is still on a few, "To Protect And Serve".
I quit teaching to start my own consulting business, which was primarily related to computers and networking. But, I was also asked by several law enforcement agencies in the state to help them with homicide investigations, which I did over a period of 15 years. It is because of my work helping law enforcement that I now feel the need to arm myself. In 1998 I was asked to examine the evidence in a murder that took place a year earlier. Examining blood spatter on scene, using Xenon lamps to illuminate the blood specs I was able to confirm where the shooter and victim were standing. I also confirmed their findings that the victim, after being shot in the head, was placed in a bath tub and shot twice again. One shot was in the chest. That the heart was still beating was confirmed by the fact that blood flowed out of the chest wound and collected in a pool near the belly button, staining the top of the panties and jeans. Because of stains INSIDE the panties I was able to establish that the murderer had molested the body of the victim. With that evidence the murderer's attorney advised the murderer to take the 2nd Murder plea deal. He did.
He would have been out of prison next year, in 2013, but a Supreme Court Justice ruled that all 2DM cases must be retried. Pundits believe he ruled that way so his nephew, in prison for 2DM drunken driving homicide, could get a new trial, but who knows? Anyway, in 1998, TEN YEARS after the first trial, I was asked to testify. Since I had all the evidence still under lock and key, it qualified for "controlled chain of custody" evidence. At this, really the first trial on the evidence, the jury heard everything the first jury didn't get to hear because of the plea deal. They convicted the murderer of 1DM, and life in prison with no chance for parole.
What did the jury hear? Something I never heard until the second trial, when the detective I originally worked with told me. A girl dropped out of high school and pursued a life of drugs, using sex to fund her addiction. She got pregnant. She pimped her son to perverts for cash to buy drugs. When he was old enough she'd boost him through transoms so he could unlock doors from the inside, allowing her to enter and rob the places. They were caught. The boy was made a ward of the State and placed in a foster home. Apparently, even at five years old, he attacked girls on those homes and eventually no foster home parent would take him. Word gets around. The state sealed his records and put him up for adoption! The Christian family that adopted him also adopted two other children, a brother and sister. At the time of the murder of his adopted sister, the 14 year old murderer had several assault cases pending in court.
Flash forward to December 1st, 2012, fourteen years later and 25 years after the murder. I got an email from the Nebraska Board of Pardons asking me if I wanted to write or present a comment on the Dec 3rd & 5th COMMUTATION hearing for the murderer!
The SCOTUS had ruled this summer that it is "unconstitutional" to sentence someone under the age of majority to a life sentence. Over the years several groups had been working to get such murderers released and their efforts were rewarded. In July, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad commuted the life-without-parole sentences of 38 convicted killers. Branstad's order made the inmates eligible for parole, but only after they had served 60 years in prison. The Nebraska AG had a similar plan to "commute" the sentences to 90 years, but a judge put an injunction on the board to prevent the December meetings. It seems that half the prisoners had figured out Bruning's plan and got the injunction. The Nebraska Supreme Court upheld it. Now there is a lot of political maneuvering going on in both the Nebraska and Iowa situation. The odds are the the prisoners will be released a lot sooner than people expect, perhaps even for time served, since even adult murderers have been released after serving less than the 24 years the murderer I helped to convict has served.The psychologists and psychiatrists who testified in the second trial said that the murderer was too dangerous and should never be released into the community. He has been quoted as saying that he wished he could toss his mother (step?) into a tub of water, along with a plugged in radio. That testimony is born out by what a student of mine said. He took time out from his college studies (he now holds a PhD in English from Cornell) and served for a few years as a prison guard in the block where the murderer is being held. He said that the murderer puts pictures of women on his cell wall and mutilates them. But, that's not the only thing he has been busy with while in prison. He is one class away from fulfilling all the class requirements for a law degree. Even though, as a convicted felon, he could never qualify for a license to practice law, he can represent himself in any court case. I suspect he will lodge several lawsuits against his family members and everyone associated with his conviction. While he probably (one can never tell about the outcome of a trial) would never win any of those cases, the costs of defense would be more than I could afford.
So, while things are grinding through the courts I have been going through all of the hoops and hurdles of getting a permit to carry a concealed weapon. And many hoops and hurdles there are, at several levels of government. In the first 40 years of my life I have shot thousands of rounds of ammo through a wide variety of weapons, including automatics. I carried a 9 mm semi-auto while I was town deputy marshal. But I still needed to take and pass a class on laws, which is a good thing, and qualify on a gun range in an exam giving by a state approved instructor, which is also a good thing. My instructor was an active Lancaster County deputy with 35 years experience. I am currently undergoing an FBI background check. If two auto accidents and three traffic citations in 55 years of driving, or picking my nose in public, doesn't disqualify me then I expect to get a Nebraska CHP for CCW by mid January.
My experience has highlighted something I never paid much attention to before. Where one can and cannot carry a concealed weapon, and why one could think that putting up a "No Firearms" sign at the door to a business, school or any other place where the general public can congregate would be sufficient to protect the people inside from guns carried in by criminals or the criminally insane. Or, why depriving me of my 2A rights will prevent a criminal from obtaining firearms, especially since my own government, with its "fast and furious" program handed them out to drug gangs like candy.
Like many posting in this thread, I have never seen the use of guns in public places other than gun ranges, and felt entirely safe from them. I'm not sure I have even heard gun shots in public. But, I've never lived in sections of town where drug use is high and drug gangs use firearms to control "their turf" and to intimidate residents. Strange, isn't it, that residents in such areas, if they can afford it, put bars in front of their doors and windows, effectively making a prison out of their house, while the criminals freely roam the streets. The law abiding are behind bars and the criminals run free. Most, if not all, of these high crime areas are also in jurisdictions where citizens are not allowed to protect themselves with guns except inside their own home, and sometimes not even there.
If our government cannot control drugs, and they cannot, they won't be able to control guns even if the 2A was thrown under the bus which has also run down parts of the 1A, 4A, 5A, 6A, 8A, 9A, 10A, 11A and 14A.
I read some people bragging about their safety in England, Australia, or parts of Western Europe. Even though the newspapers appear to be mocking the fact that some Bobbys are now armed with sub machine guns, in order to kill cows, they acquired such weapons to combat the rise in use of firearms by drug and ethnic gangs in England. One appears to be carrying a weapon which has an illegal silencer on it.
People also seem to forget, or never knew, that the 2A was placed into the Bill Of Rights at a time when "gun violence" was no less than it is today. The Boston Massacre is an example. Here is a description of it from Capt. Preston, whose men were responsible for the killings:
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/...rch-5-1770.php
and another from the viewpoint of others:
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/...rch-5-1770.php
Notice some of the things which Preston leaves out that the anonymous account includes.
While guns were used as a means of supplying food from before the creation of our Country right up to the middle of the twentieth century, hunting for food has been replaced by hunting for sport, and target shooting, because food production has eliminated the need for using guns to supply food. An aside: during the Arab oil imbargo in the 1970s I used a gun to put protein on the table because the price of propane to heat my house almost exceeded per month what I took home from teaching. I burned wood to heat the house and used a gun for deer, squirrel and pheasants in season. And, I fished. A lot. When I did quit teaching and started my consulting business I no longer used guns or went fishing. I loved teaching, but I could no longer afford to do it and feed my family.
However, everyone ignores the sole and most important reason for the 2A, as stated in 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.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Try to institute a new government if the government oppressing you has the guns and you do not.
I have no problem with you tiring to change my point of view if you have good reasoning behind yours.
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