Euclidean

I write this slightly off topic tale having just gotten home from my 11 hours in my concealed handgun license test. As excited as I am that I managed to actually score well on the range test using a semiautomatic despite one mixup (I hate external safeties even more now...), there is a bigger story to tell here.

My instructor was a 59 year old grandmother of four whom I shall respectfully refer to as "Vivi". This is not her real name, for I did not ask permission to tell her story, nor is she the type to want your pity.

Vivi is someone I strangely identified with. She's over double my age, female, and a South Texas girl. Her passions in life are her grandchildren and making beautiful letter art. You should see the certificate she gave me and the other members of the class who successfully passed the tests. It is jaw droppingly beautiful and I am having it framed.

We do have two things in common. For one we both feel very strongly about human rights, and we are talk about the right to responsible self defense a lot. For another, her passion in life is not guns even though she is a licensed concealed handgun permit instructor. My main passion in life isn't guns either.

Around a time when I was 15 or 16 years old, Vivi and her husband were sued by a new neighbor. Their new neighbor had just bought all of the land surrounding them and had moved onto it.

Soon, their neighbor filed a lawsuit against the firing range because she claimed it was dangerous and noisy and had no business operating. And the gun control extremists and whackjobs came out of the woodwork.

What these geniuses came up with is that any outdoor firing range should reside on 1000 acres of private land, and should meet every specification of the NRA handbook.

First of all, a family owned firing range barely makes money most of the time. Second of all, the specifications they were demanding be met were written for other types of facilities very unlike the one that Vivi and her husband have built literally with their own hands.

This was an attempt by gun control advocates to close down every firing range in the State of Texas. The head of Texas Against Gun Violence (better known as Texans Who Oppose Civil Rights) spoke out against the range.

Vivi, whose passion in life is letter art, fought this lawsuit with every fiber of her being.

It would have been so much easier to close the range, let the gun control lobby win, and sell the land and start over again somewhere else. But Vivi knew that wasn't right.

Vivi thought that future gun owners should have a place to safely learn how to use thier tools when they grew up. Vivi realized that the gun control lobby was using this as means to erode public knowledge of firearms and more importantly firearm safety.

Vivi and her husband fought this. And they won. The NRA revised its range manual, the regulations never passed, and the law was even revised to keep it from happening again.

But the price was steep. The liberal gun hating justices rules that since there was no noise ordnance in that county, then the range owners should have to pay the plaintiff $250,000 in legal damages.

Vivi lost her home. Vivi lost everything that she and her husband had worked so hard for all in the name of protecting my rights.

Thank God for people like Vivi and her husband. They are just glad they had this chance to win a victory for human rights.

She could not tell the story however without a tear in her eye. You never would hear a story like hers on any news station. No reporters showed up to broadcast their tale over the airwaves. But those same reporters can take the time to spread lies about guns and their owners.

Raped women, people murdered in their own homes, and grandmothers who have lost everything they ever had. This is gun control at its best.

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I am The Armed Educator.

Bumper

No, this is gun control at it's worst. I hate this kind of crap. The Texas I was born and raised in and lived in for the first 35 years of my life wouldn't have let this crap fly in the first place. At least they wouldn't have in the first 25 years there. About 10 years before I left the whole state was inundated by people from the northeast (no offense to you that are from the NE) of whom many of them were extremely liberal. It got so bad that the Governor of Texas was placing billboards on highways encouraging people to visit but not stay. They of course didn't listen. In my opinion, they, and their liberal ideas ruined Texas.

Here in Arizona it's the same story all over again. When the defense plants in California (no offense to those of you that are from California) started laying off people, they came to Arizona and stayed along with many of the winter visitors (snowbirds) and have over time changed Arizona into something it wasn't before. Seems like more and more, we pass laws here because "that's what California did." A woman here was a champion in shooting from horseback. She had a covered arena on her property (way out in the country) where she practiced. I forget what the shooting is called but they shoot balloons from horseback with a SAA loaded with blanks. Seems her new neighbors thought it was too noisy, potentially dangerous and not appropriate for the "neighborhood" and shut her down.

It's enough to make you sick. And we need more like this woman and her husband to fight instead of fold, but, unfortunately, most will fold these days. Damn, Euclidean, you ave me so pissed off again I am going to have to go play a game and destroy some stuff.

Good story BTW even if it is sad......

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Bumper
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DefensiveCarry.com Forum
Coimhéad fearg fhear na foighde; Beware the anger of a patient man.

QKShooter

Thanks! I hope everyone reads this thread.
Yep, that was me that just rated it.
Off topic??...Heck No. ~ This thread could not be more "on topic" for this forum.
Great thread Euclidean.

Oh...& BTW "As excited as I am that I managed to actually score well on the range test using a semiautomatic despite one mixup"
Congrats!

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Euclidean

From now on, I know all my ammunition and cleaning products are coming from this small range even if it is $2 less at another store. If I ever need an FFL transfer I'm using them. I'd rather give my money to people like this than some chain store.

What's also interesting about this story is that this family has been at this for so long, the boys who used to come with their dads at their range are now their part time counter help.

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I am The Armed Educator.

Bud White

Is aGood Story to bad she had to go though that ..

Glad ya passed your test

rocky

liberals suck! Too many folks can't wake up to the truth that guns are merely tools. Nice to hear about NRA defending people who get sued for defending themselves. I'm suprised the NRA didn't do more for this lady.

FortyFive

That lady and her family went through hell to keep her dignity. She deserves a national holiday named for her. Bumper as to that gal on horseback; I seen her on TV awhile back, she was very good. So is the guy sitting up there in the state capital more dangerious than say a 50 cal rifle?? What I am getting at is these politicians with a stroke of the pen can implement a bill that will cripple the people of the state.

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NRA Life Member

Euclidean

They helped with the legal research at least. She doesn't like to talk about exactly how many hundreds of thousands of dollars the whole episode cost them. She did comment the lady suing them spent about a million dollars on the case.

Suffice to say even with help, it has ruined them financially.

__________________
I am The Armed Educator.