Monday, February 21, 2011

Constitutional Carry!!

If you're interested in keeping ALL of your natural rights then I highly encourage all of you in the fine state of Colorado to follow the link below and sign RMGO's online petition to support constitutional carry in the state of Colorado. Dudley is doing a great job with this bill and needs your support to help push it through.

http://www.rmgo.org/petitions/colorado-constitutional-carry

This week the Constitutional Carry bill faces it's first hurdle in the Colorado Legislature when it is heard in the House Judiciary Committee.

On Thursday, Feb. 24th at 1:30pm the House Judiciary Committee will hear HB1205 by Rep. Chris Holbert (R-Parker) and Sen. Greg Brophy (R-Wray).

This bill already has a huge number of co-sponsors, but to reach the House floor it needs to first pass through this committee.

If you have not already done so, please click here to sign our petition for Constitutional Carry.

And then take the time to join Rocky Mountain Gun Owners and help us pass Constitutional Carry in Colorado.

This bill is designed to do one thing: allow citizens who are legally eligible to possess handguns to carry that handgun concealed, without obtaining a costly, burdensome and bureaucratic permit.

This bill doesn't get rid of the existing permits. It just gives citizens another option for self defense.

That's what I call real freedom.

One of the chief advantages this bill presents is that citizens are not put on any government tracking list merely for carrying the tools for self defense, nor do they have to pay fees for a permit.

I've heard a lot of people say "The Constitution is my permit", but this actually gives teeth to that thought.

Citizens in Vermont, Alaska and Arizona currently enjoy that right, and Wyoming could be joining that list in the next few weeks.

Just as important as what HB1205 does are what it does not do:

  • Does not repeal or otherwise change Colorado’s existing concealed carry permit law (CRS 18-12-201).
  • Does not authorize the carrying of a concealed handgun by felons, the mentally ill, juveniles or anyone otherwise prohibited from possessing a handgun under state and federal law.
  • Does not change where concealed handguns are allowed as defined by CRS 18-12-214.
  • Does not affect reciprocity agreements with other states in any manner.
  • Does not affect the ability of prosecutors to pursue charges for other crimes.

This bill is a major step for freedom, and is something every gun owner in Colorado should get behind.

Even if you already have a concealed carry permit, this bill is still a major advance for freedom, since it wouldn't affect your permit.

Today, I need you to contact the members of the House Judiciary Committee to politely urge them to support this important legislation.

Note: Rep. Bob Gardner, the Committee Chairman, is the only Republican on this committee who has not yet co-sponsored this bill.

You can e-mail these State Representatives at the following addresses:

Bob

Gardner

R

bob.gardner.house@state.co.us

Mark

Barker

R

mark.barker.house@state.co.us

Brian

DelGrosso

R

brian@briandelgrosso.com

Crisanta

Duran

D

crisanta.duran.house@state.co.us

Daniel

Kagan

D

repkagan@gmail.com

Pete

Lee

D

pete.lee.house@state.co.us

Claire

Levy

D

claire.levy.house@state.co.us

B.J.

Nikkel

R

rep.nikkel@gmail.com

Su

Ryden

D

su.ryden.house@state.co.us

Jerry

Sonnenberg

R

jerry@repsonnenberg.com

Mark

Waller

R

mark.waller.house@state.co.us

For Freedom,

Dudley Brown
Executive Director

P.S. Please contact the members of the House Judiciary Committee today to urge them to support House Bill 1205.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Taser Shotgun!?!


Practical? Not for me. Super cool? Oh yeah. I don't know what I'd use it for, other than some misguided filming of the next Jackass movie, but I still want one. I'm just glad none of my gradeschool teachers had this thing.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

A Tale of Home Defense

Make My Day Shooter: ‘I Did The Right Thing’

DENVER (CBS4)- A 17-year-old who was shot and killed after breaking into a northeast Denver home last May was under the influence of alcohol, marijuana and opiates according to a CBS4 Investigation.

“I didn’t know that,” responded his mother, Cynthia Gonzales, when CBS4 showed her the toxicology report for her son, Marcus Duran.

It shows the teen tested positive for alcohol, opiates and THC- the active ingredient in marijuana- on May 24, 2010.

In the early morning hours, Duran and two other teens broke into a woman’s home setting off her burglar alarm. In a terrifying call to 911, the woman told a police dispatcher she is home alone because her husband is out of town.

“I’m in my room and the door is locked,” the woman said, as the burglar alarm blared in the background. “It sounded like someone got in through my window,” she sobbed. .“Please hurry- my husband’s out of town.”

Duran and his two teenage friends fled, but didn’t go far. They decided to break into another nearby home and rob the homeowner. They chose Darrell Kutchin’s two story home. It would be a fatal mistake for Duran.

Kutchin is a professional masseuse. He was asleep in his basement, but he kept a loaded gun nearby, tucked inside a sock.

“I heard this crash. It sounded like a freight train. I thought it was a car accident,” Kutchin said of the sound of the three teens breaking down his front door and moving through his house. “It sounded like a herd of elephants, a lot of things above me.”

Kutchin grabbed his loaded handgun- a Taurus Judge- so named because judges carry this type of weapon in their courtrooms for self- defense. The gun shoots .410 buckshot or .45 caliber bullets.

Gun at his side, Kutchin walked upstairs.

“I’m yelling ‘Who’s in my house? Who’s in my house?’ I was scared,” said Kutchin.

Suddenly, the three teens came running down from the second floor. Marcus Duran was carrying a loaded pistol. As he neared the front door, about five feet away from Kutchin, Duran brandished the loaded gun and aimed it at the homeowner. Duran was still inside Kutchin’s home.

“And I just reacted in a defensive stance and took a shot,” said Kutchin.

The round missed its target. Kutchin said he could see Duran’s pistol.

“I saw a gun pointed at me and I shot,” said Kutchin.

The second round found its mark, hitting Duran in the head. The two other teens fled. Kutchin, who has first aid training, tried to administer medical assistance to Duran who had fallen on Kutchin’s front stoop. But the teen was dead.

“There were some errors in judgment made on that night when the individuals entered my house. I’m not a vigilante,” says Kutchin.

“I’m a law abiding homeowner that happens to be armed,” said Kutchin, in his first interview about the shooting.

Asked if he would do the same thing again, Kutchin says he would.

The Denver District Attorney’s office cleared Kutchin of any criminal wrongdoing, ruling his actions were justified under Colorado law.

But across town, Marcus Duran’s mother, Cynthia Gonzales, is still questioning what happened that night.

“I don’t understand why he (Kutchin) couldn’t have done a warning shot or shot him in his leg. They didn’t fire shots. They were scared and running out when it happened,” said Gonzales.

Darrell Kutchin said there was no time for warning shots or shooting to wound.

“I saw a gun pointed at me and I shot, no time to think about shooting him in the leg. And if you fire a warning shot, you are putting your neighbors in harm’s way,” said Kutchin.

Besides said Kutchin, in the time it would take to fire a warning shot, he believes Duran could have shot and killed him.

“My Godson did wrong, but he didn’t deserve to die,” said Phyllis Chavez, Duran’s godmother.

“I don’t think it was fair the way he(Kutchin) shot freely. Do it in the air. Why was he aiming at them if they are running away? That’s the part I don’t understand,” said Chavez.

“It happened so quickly it was reactive, instinct,” said Kutchin.

He said there was no time to ponder options or deliberate.

“My life was in harm’s way. There’s no doubt in my mind if I wasn’t in the presence of mind to defend myself I wouldn’t be here today,” said Kutchin.

Since his death, Duran’s mother and godmother have both received tattoos as reminders of the teenager they loved. His mother wears a heart shaped pendant around her neck. Inside are some of Marcus Duran’s ashes.
Kutchin said he is slowly healing from what happened.

“The fact that someone chose to lose their life in my house, in my surroundings with actions that I reacted to, that’s hard, mentally. Someone tried to make me a victim of something but I choose to be a victor. And by choosing to be a victor, I’m going to get healthy,” said Kutchin.

Kutchin said beyond the anguish over what happened, he has spent $5,000 on attorneys fees, another $1,000 on his insurance deductible and countless hours dealing with police, prosecutors and court personnel.

As part of the healing, he gave one of the teenage offenders several self-help books in an attempt to help the young man choose the correct path. One of the books was ‘”How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. The other was Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich.”

Both of the teens who escaped that night are behind bars, in connection with the two break ins last May.

Kutchin said his heart goes out to the family of Marcus Duran. But he says he owes no apologies.

“I did the right thing. He was an individual who made an error in judgment that was very costly. It was an error in judgment that he chose to end his life,” said Kutchin.

My Thoughts:

-First of all, I want to know who this guy’s lawyer was. He said exactly the right things. Take note he never says he’s sorry or that he’d do things differently. He shows himself to be the victim turned victor and the young punk for the thug he is.

-The Taurus Judge, while for some reason a very popular gun, is NOT known as the Judge because judges carry it. This gun is an interesting combination of shotgun and pistol, and doesn’t do either very well. Most judges I know carry some form of major caliber semi-auto with few exceptions.

-As an armchair quarterback I’ll say the one major thing this guy did wrong: DON’T go looking for trouble. This gentleman was in a relatively secured position within his basement which most likely had only one narrow access point. He would have been much better off to have stayed behind cover in the basement and guarded the stairwell to ensure no one came down to greet him. Yelling something to the effect of “Don’t come in the basement, I have a gun!” would have been rather effective. He might also have avoided being forced to remove the offending trespasser had he done so. With Denver’s progressive prosecutors it is somewhat surprising that this tactic didn’t come up when deciding to file charges. It could be said that he went looking for a fight. While this isn’t true, the argument could be made.

-The law-abiding homeowner did exactly the right thing by not intentionally firing a warning shot. If you fire a gun in self-defense it should only be because you fear for your life and need to stop a threat. That’s exactly what this gentleman did. While the first shot effectively did become a warning shot due to a miss, he quickly regrouped and followed up with an effective life saving round placed.

-To continue the last point, don’t alternate your ammo. Alternating buckshot and slugs is a BAD idea. This man needed to stop a threat on the first shot and didn’t need nor want his gun to scare the offender. Having missed with the first, that second shot became his lifesaver. Any attempt to alternate types of ammunition loaded in your gun will only prove to cause trouble for you when the flag flies.

-Lastly, be prepared and have a plan. No exceptions.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Police Shooting


Watch the other hand. Then watch who it is that's doing the shooting. You'll probably have to view the vid several times to catch everything. Let me know your thoughts in the comment section.

Home Invasion Gone Bad

Hotshot forwarded this article to me and I have posted it in its (almost) entirety. My comments follow.

Vickie Graves says she tried to shoot intruder, gun wouldn't go off

When the gunfire erupted inside her Washington Pike home, Vickie Graves was ready to kill.

"I'd done everything I could to get that gun to work," she said of the weapon she grabbed after shots rang out during an invasion of the home she shared with husband, Bill Graves. "I would have shot (the attacker she faced) - definitely."

When she realized her husband might be dead, however, she was ready to die.

"When I couldn't get an answer from Bill, I didn't care," she said. "I was wanting him to kill me."

Graves described for jurors in Knox County Criminal Court on Tuesday the night in May 2009 when she and her husband settled in for a movie and instead faced off with masked intruders. The encounter left the 52-year-old Bill Graves mortally wounded.

Her testimony came in the second day of trial for Gary Scott Holman, 28, who is accused along with Josh Lee Bowman of carrying out a fatal home invasion allegedly cooked up by a relative via marriage to Vickie Graves. The three are being tried separately.

Graves told jurors she and her husband were watching a movie in the living room when a buzzer sounded, alerting them to movement in the driveway. Bill Graves went to the front door.

"Just as he got to the door, this guy (identified by authorities as Bowman) just leaps in and grabs Bill in a bear hug," she testified.

Holman followed, pointing what Vickie Graves said she believed was a gun at her head. As her husband broke free and ran toward his gun case, two shots rang out, she said. Knox County Sheriff's Office detectives say it was Bowman who fired those shots.

"I started screaming, 'Bill, Bill, answer me,' " she said.

Graves has hated guns ever since her father died from an accidental shooting, but with Holman distracted by the gunfire, she said she pushed him and grabbed a gun her husband kept stashed beside his chair.

"I kept pulling the trigger," she said. "I was trying to get that gun to go off, and I just couldn't."

The gun, as it turned out, had three separate safety mechanisms. She said Holman grabbed the barrel, and the two became locked in a struggle over the weapon. But as seconds passed with no sounds from her husband, she gave up.

"I was just so tired of wrestling with him," she said.

When the two intruders ran out with one grabbing a safe on the way out, Graves found her husband collapsed and bleeding heavily. He died a day later, a gunshot having severed his femoral artery.

The safe that cost Bill Graves his life contained a handful of silver dollars and three collections of state quarters.


COMMENTS:

-Everyone who as access to your firearms should have the knowledge to use them for BASIC self defense. This woman had an irrational fear of a mechanical device that prevented her from being able to use it when it was most needed. If she didn't want to learn how to use it then she shouldn't have been able to easily access it.

-ALWAYS Carry!! The departed was headed in the right direction for home protection. A buzzer for motion detection in the drive is a great idea. A gun in the house loaded and ready for protection is another good move for some people. Answering the door to someone you don't know was the second bad move Mr. Graves made. His first was leaving his gun on the other side of the room when confronting strangers. Mr. Graves should have had his gun attached to his hip when he went to the door to see who was there and shouldn't have opened it to a stranger. NO EXCEPTIONS!!

-Bad Guys Don't Care! Mrs. Graves said, "I'd done everything I could to get that gun to work." No, she didn't. She didn't have a plan, didn't prepare, and the bad guys didn't care one bit. Have a plan, then have a backup. The lives you save could be your spouse or children. Bad guys don't care if you forgot to prepare.