In a week full of many gun rights controversies, I was thinking of writing an article about the fact that there must be a gay guy or gal who wants guns to protect him- or herself from violent anti-gay bigots, whatever those bigots' rationalizations. Yesterday, the article was written for me, and it featured an amazing life story.
Claire Gordon, a Huffington Post contributor, writing at America Online, told the story of someone who breaks all the stereotypical images that people on both sides of the gun control issue may have. Her article spotlights a gay black Democrat who is a U.S. Army veteran and currently owns a gun store in Austin, Texas.
Claire Gordon writes:
Austin gun shop owner Michael Cargill, 43, might not fit the popular image of the gun rights movement. He's gay and a Democrat. He didn't grow up hunting, or with guns in his home. In fact, his family shunned guns like many other black families -- a reaction, in part, to the harrowing rates of black-on-black homicide.
Cargill applied for a concealed-gun license 22 years ago, after his grandmother, who decided to get a nursing degree at the age of 70, was mugged and raped on the way home from the library. Now he runs Central Texas Gun Works in Austin, which specializes in concealed weapons....
That's why Cargill, a 12-year veteran of the U.S. Army, became a gun safety instructor. Anyone in Texas who wants a license to carry a concealed handgun must take 10-hour certification course, and Cargill's classes -- which he began out of his living room -- were an instant hit. "People knew my intentions were good," he says.
Cargill now teaches thousands of gun owners a year, focusing on de-escalation skills, conflict resolution, and how to stay within the parameters of the law. It took him years to find someone willing to rent him a storefront, he says, partly because he wanted to sell guns, and partly because he was black.
Both Gov. Cuomo and President Obama totally ignored the plight of gays and blacks wishing to defend themselves against violence when calling for low magazine capacities. Apparently we are to believe that the Ku Klux Klan and those like them never ride in groups, and thus seven shots is enough to thwart their violent intentions. As Ann Coulter wrote in April of 2012:
A World War II Marine veteran, Williams returned home to Monroe, N.C., to find the Klan riding high -- beating, lynching and murdering blacks at will. No one would join the NAACP for fear of Klan reprisals. Williams became president of the local chapter and increased membership from six to more than 200.
But it was not until he got a charter from the NRA in 1957 and founded the Black Armed Guard that the Klan got their comeuppance in Monroe....
In the preface to "Negroes With Guns," Williams writes: "I have asserted the right of Negroes to meet the violence of the Ku Klux Klan by armed self-defense -- and have acted on it. It has always been an accepted right of Americans, as the history of our Western states proves, that where the law is unable, or unwilling, to enforce order, the citizens can, and must act in self-defense against lawless violence."
One could also add that a battered female gun owner in a safe house would need some sort of equalizer if her home address, shown for weeks on the Westchester County, NY-based Journal News website, is visited by a belligerent ex-husband -- or, in some cases, an ex-gay lover. Yes, violent behavior in the real world isn't limited to the most frequently discussed type of assailant: males. Of course, this also applies to those battered women who live in places in America not exposed on interactive newspaper maps.
But let's take another look at Mr. Cargill's interview in the AOL article:
As a Democrat, Cargill is a rarity among gun dealers. But Cargill doesn't think his profession is at odds with his liberal beliefs, and he's frustrated by some of the anti-gun arguments expressed by members of his own party.
"Stop trying to make people feel guilty about protecting themselves," he urges. "There's no way we're going to completely eliminate guns from the United States. That's not reality."
Clearly, Michael Cargill probably has no plans to run for mayor of New York City, Chicago or San Francisco. He said, "Don't make people feel guilty about protecting themselves"? If he said that Joseph McCarthy was a great senator, would liberals be any less outraged? In fact, the article concludes with:
At Cargill's shop, you can also buy T-shirts with the slogan: "Buy a gun, annoy a liberal."
As of Monday noon, January 21, this article on AOL has drawn 481 comments, some of them critical of Mr. Cargill's stand in life. Yes, he really does annoy liberals, who believe that everyone should categorically agree with them because their theoretical positions are "a higher truth" than the positions of any person out there living in and interacting with the real world.
Comment
Comment by Doug Sheets on January 23, 2013 at 9:34am Jim, even if the first bullet fired is theirs, the mainstream media will claim it was ours. So just be ready for it.
Comment by Paul Szemanczky on January 22, 2013 at 5:13pm Liz: A Ct waitress last year after taking 'the niceties and compliments' of an alien waiter working at a Third World restaurant in New Haven kindly gave him a lift home one night. Her perfume had worn off and she was tired, and he had something in his 'craw of craws' that needed satisfaction. So he raped her repeatedly in the local park, and like several others in the same park by different other 'guys' over the years, was left for dead, so battered in the face she couldn't be recognized first-glance by her co-workers. New Haven is an Alien-Friendly city where the mayor (DeStefano) offers free id's and wants voting privileges given to all aliens who have over 150+ social services, many of them available to these creeping non-citizens. Back to the STORY: This woman is traumitized for LIFE; her attacker will do 10 years, go back to S. America, and probably cross the border in TX or AZ again to commit more mischief, with Obama's full-blessings. Liberals call this: the poor white girl rape story who would never carry a gun, god-forbid! Conservatives call this: '...if that was my friend or sister I would wait to get that alien and I would'... (not me speaking of course). Justice and Values. The coward neighbor you wrote about in your story: in my opinion, castration is too good for him!
Comment by Charles McChesney on January 22, 2013 at 12:07pm I absolutely applaud Mr. Cargill. He has ir right, and I wish him all the success in the world. If he had an E-dress, I would probably one of his T-s'
Comment by Jack Kemp on January 22, 2013 at 11:27am Billy, good story about the KKK & the blacks and Cherokees.
Comment by Jack Kemp on January 22, 2013 at 11:21am Thanks, Debrajoe. It's good to see your name again among the comments.
Comment by Debrajoe Smith-Beatty on January 22, 2013 at 11:18am Good article.
Comment by Jack Kemp on January 22, 2013 at 11:05am Lizzie, that's is, unfortunately, a great story. I once had to convince a younger acquatance in NY whose dad owned a summer camp, not to allow homeless people on the grounds in the off-season explaining that they could do damage or have diseases that could be communicated to the children.
It also recalls a famous NY City public hearing where a liberal stood up and said they would not change their views about the law, even though they were mugged. Someone in the audience yelled out, "Mug them again!"
Often, a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged.
Comment by Cracker on January 22, 2013 at 10:42am If we loose the 2nd amendment we loose the constitution! WE THE PEOPLE need to fight to maintain the 2nd amendment as it stands. Not as the dicktater spewed,"we the people", need to be flexible, F**K him. WE THE REAL PEOPLE will fight for the 2nd amendment & the constitution as it stands. Any UNAMERICAN effort to change or eliminate any of our god given right will be met with resistance. We need to stand together and be ready to act soon. When that first bullet is fired it needs to be theirs; however, our effort to retake AMERICA will be deliberate to remove the cancer. Keep the faith! OP
Comment by Lizzie on January 22, 2013 at 10:24am I have a close relative, (I don't want to give particulars, this was really traumatic for her and I know she just wants privacy), but she's super-liberal and all of her friends are super-liberal and she lives on a mini-farm surrounded by super-liberals. At any rate, one of her neighbors was taking pity on a mentally-disturbed illegal alien by letting him squat on their land. One day, when she was in her 3rd trimester, he attacked her in front of her two young sons. He had a knife, I guess for his protection, he didn't cut her but he was relentlessly trying to pull her pants down. She screamed for help and fought him off, for what seemed like hours, while her sons hid in the car. Her neighbor, an icon of the liberal male if ever there was one, yelled at the man "you stop that!" while hiding behind his fence. Then he left to call the police and did not return to the scene. She and her boys were traumatized for months, but unhurt. The baby was healthy.
She is a gun owner now.
But if each liberal has to personally experience such an awful attack before they see the benefit of self-defense, we aren't going to win this debate. Such is their delusion and denial.
Comment by Herb Irish on January 22, 2013 at 9:36am Good for Mr. Cargill to promote guns as same, protective devices. Keeping firearms may not be the the most ideal solution to protecting ones family and home, but it certainly is the most expedient method of confronting an intruder with evil intentions. For sure, calling 911 is an idealistic procedure to employ, but by the time the police arrive, the evil has been perpetrated and, most likely, the intruder is gone. It is logical to presume that any intruder into your home is there to rob you and inflict injury on your body. As for me and my wife, we choose to bear arms.
© 2013 Created by Judson Phillips.
You need to be a member of Tea Party Nation to add comments!
Join Tea Party Nation