Soon to be an Official Club
The paperwork has been started for us to be an official recognized student club on campus. Please be sure to contact Ryan Faerman so that he can get your signature on the proper forms.
We have just under six weeks to get the paper work completed and turned in, so let’s make it happen!
National Collegiate Empty Holster Protest
Students for Concealed Carry on Campus will hold its third national collegiate Empty Holster Protest during the week of April 20-24, 2009. Thousands of college students throughout the United States, organized under the banner of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC), will attend classes wearing empty holsters, in protest of state laws and school policies that stack the odds in favor of dangerous criminals and armed killers by disarming law abiding citizens licensed to carry concealed handguns virtually everywhere else.
Read More »Two Shot in Tamarac Convenience Store
This is the exact reason why you should carry regardless of where you’re going or how long you’ll be there.
Sports Survey at FAU
If you haven’t checked your FAU email recently, I strongly encourage you to do so. An email should be waiting in your inbox for a survey from FAU Athletics about how to serve the students the best.
One of the available sports is Rifle.
The survey is available here: http://iea.fau.edu/surveys/snap/title9200809.htm and I strong encourage you to go ahead and fill it out.
FAU SCCC Meeting
We are having a gathering Sunday, February 1, 2009 at 4:00PM.
Even if you’ve never been in a situation that made you fear for your life, you should raise your voice to defend your rights before legislators try to take them away.
Don’t let your rights be trampled!
We’ll be discussing the recent violence college campuses around the country, ways you can legally defend yourself, and raising awareness for our cause.
Bring your thoughts and questions.
Remember, when you need help now, the police are only ten minutes away.
Contact the Campus Leader, Ryan Faerman, with any questions at ryan.faerman@gmail.com or post them as comments.
Young Woman Decapitated at Virginia Tech
Yesterday (Thursday, January 22, 2009), a young woman was decapitated at Virgina Tech with a kitchen knife (via The Associated Press). She was a foreign student who had arrived less than three weeks prior to her death.
How could no one notice some guy taking a kitchen knife to a woman’s neck until after she had been murdered? I don’t propose to know the exact details as to how to go about decapitating someone with a kitchen knife, but I’d imagine it isn’t a quick and easy process. Plus there is the fact that this took place in the campus cafeteria. There is little doubt in my mind that, just like at FAU, the cafeteria is never truly empty.
Is the reaction to this disturbing story going to be similar to the reaction after April 2007? Are we going to see groups spring up about banning knives from college campuses, in the same way that anti-gun groups sprang up shortly after the shooting? While we’re at it, there should be anti-pencil groups, since those too can injure others; what about anti-paper groups, since we all hate those damn paper-cuts.
Statistics all seem to show that bad people are going to do bad things with whatever tools are at their disposal. It is a well known fact that England has a complete and total ban on firearms. Despite these draconian measures, and in all probability because of them, there were “277 stabbing deaths in 2007-8” (via BBC News). Clearly, removing firearms from the law-abiding citizens of England has failed to protect them from individuals with less-than-friendly intent.
Just as an artist wouldn’t be denied a brush; just as a doctor wouldn’t be denied a scalpel; law-abiding citizens shouldn’t be denied the tools they need to protect themselves, and potentially protect others.
Two Women Assaulted at FAU
This past Thursday FAU posted a campus-wide alert (using their email alert system) that a “Hispanic Male in his mid 20’s” was wanted for questioning regarding the assault of two women on campus. You can see the full police flyer direct from FAU and the full email is at the end of this posting.
Rather than allow students, faculty, and staff the ability to legally defend themselves as they can anywhere outside of campus, the University (and most other universities in the country) would rather offer counseling for victims and classes of defense tactics. They also offer some other safety advice:
If you suspect that someone is following you, drive to the nearest open public place, to the University Police or the local police department.
Walk to your vehicle in pairs or in a group.
Be aware of your surroundings. Watch for suspicious people or activities.
Vary your routine; use a different route, different times.
There are a few more, but this sample is enough to see what the FAU police want students, faculty, and staff to do. Rather than have any effective means of stopping an assailant, they would rather each person to look around and wait until they are attacked. Personally, I don’t want to wait to be attacked. I don’t want to be attacked at all, but I certainly don’t want my only defense to be shouting for help from a police force that, as we can see in the example of these two assaulted women, only arrive after the damage is already done.
Florida Law isn’t very clear on how you are permitted to defend yourself on a Florida campus. Firearms are totally prohibited; it is a felony to have one on campus. But what about other items such as pepper spray or any other chemical device that falls within the legal limits to carry on or about your person everywhere that isn’t a college campus?
I’ve spoken with a Lieutenant of the FAU Police, who told me that you are permitted to carry pepper spray, or other chemical spray, on your person so long as it is not used in an offensive manner and of course, that it is legal within Florida. You’re also permitted to carry a knife, as long as it fits Florida law for being a pocket knife. That is, a knife that has a blade within 4” long and folds. If you are doubtful about something you wish to carry, I strongly suggest you run it by the campus police before using it and getting yourself in a whole heap of trouble.
Why does the administration of the school not inform their students, faculty, and staff that they are permitted to carry these items when sending out these alert emails? While I think that much needs to be done regarding the carrying of firearms on campus, these devices are at least better than nothing. Criminals can essentially do whatever they want on our campuses with little or no resistance; as soon as more of them start figuring that out, we’re going to be in some serious trouble unless we (the students, faculty, and staff) already have the means to defend ourselves.
Laws can only be created for the law abiding citizens. Criminals aren’t going to suddenly stop doing what they are doing simply because a law gets written. They criminals who by their very definition, are “guilty of breaking the law”. These laws only stop us, the law abiding citizens, from protecting ourselves.
This is the type of situation in which we can’t be reactive - we must be proactive. We must remove the legislation which prevents us from protecting ourselves and our loved ones on college campuses. Settling for any less is spitting in the face of our founding fathers who specifically stated in the Bill of Rights that:
A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
That means, in plain english, that everyone has a right to defend themselves and no government can take that away from you.
Range Time
We’re having another informal gathering at Delray Shooting Center this coming Monday, January 12 at 4:30PM. Leave a comment if you think you’ll be coming so we know to look out for you.
If you want to come, but can’t make it leave a comment with a time or day that would work better for you and the next time we go we’ll try to accommodate the most people.
Update: The gathering went fairly well. We all destroyed a few paper targets and generally had a good time.