If You Carry a Firearm…

On February 14, 2015, my son and I took the PDH1, Personal Defense Handgun level 1 class at the REACT training facility near Bend, OR. I am submitting this brief review.

This basic class is packed with very high level instruction that advances the student beyond what most basic, entry level classes will. Please don’t miss what you just read. The class starts you with advanced level habits (which of course depend on your personal practice after taking the class).

The class is 8 hours, come well rested and ready to learn. The instructor was very student friendly, welcoming all questions, and very able to segue back to his topic. The experience was positive, personal, and professionally conducted. The class is SAFE and promotes the very best in firearms handling with safety habits practiced always.

Three primary areas are covered thoroughly. First is Oregon law regarding firearms, an actual read through of statutory law. Time wise, this is the longest portion of the class which is good. Firearms ownership and bearing of arms is a most serious responsibility of citizenship.

Second, interlaced with the classroom instruction, and a welcome opportunity to stretch, was practical instruction on holstering, elements of the draw, and specific handling necessary to safety and self defense.

Third, came the live fire training, expending about 50 rounds from your firearm, and learning range rules and safety protocols around other students. Individual instruction was paramount here, with much time spent answering questions and addressing introductory matters appropriate to an introductory class.

Fourth, and very unusual in an entry level class, was the simulation training. This I believe to be unusual in a basic class, and is a real bonus. The simulation tested in as real an environment as possible the things learned throughout the day. A debriefing after the session was most interesting. It was fun, humbling, and revealing for each individual. Airsoft weapons were used, along with appropriate safety gear, giving the simulation a very real feel.

I highly recommend you get training such as this if you plan to carry your gun. I doubt you’ll find a better instruction experience anywhere. REACT has additional training available with multiple weapon choices and expert instructors. I cannot recommend them any higher.

Whether you are in law enforcement, or a citizen carrying a gun for personal protection, nothing is more important than knowing the law, and knowing the fight involving the weapon system of your choice. The responsibilities are enormous and life changing. So, please, get training from professionals, not from TV! Proper handling, storage, safe use are all well developed in their sophistication. There are many things to learn. Please take advantage of the many fine opportunities available!

I must close with an important caveat. I do not believe in compulsory, government enforced training. I believe in freedom, and the responsibilities it demands. Perhaps the best way to lose freedom, is to be ignorant of the freedom we love.

Take a look at reacttraining.com

“Aim small, Miss small.”

The Individual Sovereign

“A well regulated militia being necessary to security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

The power to bring death is the assurance of individual sovereignty. The ability to control that power is what makes civility. From hunting food, to defending self, family and community, the ability and skills necessary to kill provide an individual not only with the means to survive, but to thrive and make decisions about polity within the civil society.

Without the power of death, the individual is not really sovereign at all. With that, the individual is vested with a great deal of responsibility to be ethical, morally guided by strong principles to protect his family and community. How can I be assured that my choices are honored if I have not the power to threaten, to depose tyrants, if I have not the power they have assumed to themselves?

Yet, if I abuse that power, I do not deserve that power. In essence this is the definition of crime. Killing and murdering are two distinct things, though the act may look very similar. It is the individual abuse of powers vested in the individual by natural law. The right must be exercised only for defensive or survival purposes, or be lost. The community being threatened by such abuse, now has the responsibility to remove the sovereignty from such an individual. Indeed, one who demonstrates inability to control power over life and death, must not be allowed to have that power any longer.

This is also why those who have demonstrated no disposition to crime, be vested with the right, the authority to keep and to bear arms. This right must not be infringed lest it be lost. It is the responsible person who is the “well regulated.” The mature man, free and strong must protect these values from his position of strength, his position of having the power of lethality. For if the responsible person is infringed upon, then he is vulnerable to the unscrupulous, victim to the irresponsible, and eviscerated by any who abuses the power over life and death, be it scoundrel or force of government. But if he remains free, without infringement, then he can protect and preserve and encourage the civil society.

Choosing to participate in the civil society is an act of the individual sovereign. It is an act of one with the power over life and death. But if that participation is to remain in force, there is the need to freely, but responsibly exercise the use of deadly force. Herein lies the rub with modern society in the United States. It is as though the individual no longer has the choice of participation. This is the offense of “political correctness.” I may not agree with the apparent choices presented by pop culture or media or government. My choices are not honored in the social contract. My choices not being honored, how then am I to remain sovereign?

“When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, …” (Declaration of Independence).
I do not know whether this necessity has come upon us just yet. Yet! Yet, it seems to fast approach! The time has certainly come to declare the causes which impel us toward possible separation. I’ll keep that for later.

First, to address our options. The second amendment must stand unfettered. I mean all the current infringements operating against it must fall down. Spurious laws infringing it must be repealed. The arguments as to which those are will be too many to cover here, but to suffice it to say, the federal government has become too powerful when it blocks us from enjoying the freedoms of natural law.

The second option is to exercise the 5th article of the constitution. This means the states must regain their original powers of censure over the federal government. A convention of the states may bring amendments, or repeal amendments as seen fit to reduce the power of the federal government from this posture of threatening both individual sovereignty and state sovereignty.

Simply voting is not an option, unless preceded by a massive spiritual awakening, thereby voting in the properly moral people to offices across the land. The federal government is currently operating out of sync with the people. Expecting the federal government to reform itself is laughable at this point.

If the United States of America is to thrive on, individual sovereignty must be addressed at all levels. The rights of the individual have been abrogated at nearly all levels. Currently, across the nation, anti second amendment forces are gathering momentum to infringe upon this most sacred and powerful authority granted to individuals by natural law. The more they succeed, the closer we are driven to the inevitable, the collapse of the civil society, the fall of the social contract, that course of human events in which we must chart a new course. In that course, we will “…appeal to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions.” (Declaration of Independence). For it is with our individual sovereignty that we must forge ahead.