Blood in the Streets Page 14
I quickly became cyberfriends with people named IAJack, Burddog, Pramunitis, ArmedFerret, Terry1810, Charby, robertsgunshop, Reedie, Sieve, SeanM, G.Dave, Hangfire, HKshooter, SFC Stu, Lady27, HK Dan, and 520fd. Now, after 9 months in Iowa, they have progressed from cyber friends, to blood, flesh-and-bone human friends of whom I am proud to be affiliated. All of you accepted me into the Hawkeye fold, taught me the ropes (still teaching me) and I am eternally grateful. Thank you.
It was through the IowaCarry.org forum that I learned how to move to Iowa and still maintain my right to keep and bear arms. If not for the infamous red-yellow-green map, I may have been unwittingly reduced from armed citizen to unarmed and defenseless subject. I don’t think I could have handled that.
But IowaCarry.org quickly taught me that approximately half the 99 counties in Iowa issued CCW permits in near-shall-issue fashion. This encouraged me. So, using the red-yellow-green map, I plotted out likely places to buy a house within 30 minutes of Cedar Rapids. (The red-yellow-green county code goes like this: A red county is little or no issue; yellow county is limited issue with greater restrictions; green county is near shall-issue with few restrictions.) Linn county was quickly ruled out, but neighboring Jones county appealed to me from the start. It was rural, mostly farmland, plenty of rivers and fishing, lots of hunting land, and plenty of down-home folk who were friendly and accepting. I still remember the first friends we made in Iowa were Claudia and Bernie of the Anamosa Super 8 motel. I still don’t know their last names, but last names don’t seem so important in a town of only 4,000 people. According to everything I was hearing from my friends at IowaCarry, Jones county was the place to live. However, I wasn’t about to leave my CCW future hanging in the tenuous column, so I quickly called up and spoke with Glenda at the Jones County Sheriff’s Department. I still remember the conversation.
“No, Sheriff Denniston’s not in right now, but I can tell you that he believes that everyone who wants to should be able to carry a pistol for self defense.”
Glenda’s words were music to my redneck, gun-totin’ ears. Wanting more confirmation, I sent Sheriff Denniston the following email:
Sheriff Denniston,
My name is Skip Coryell, and I presently live in Nashville, Michigan. I am 49 and I have lived in Michigan my whole life. My wife is interviewing in Cedar Rapids, and it looks like she’ll be taking a job there soon. I’ve done a lot of internet research and Jones County looks like the place for us. It’s rural, downhome, good hunting, good schools, and the people have been friendly. My last concern is the availability of CCW permits in Jones county. My wife and I have had Michigan permits for 5 years, and we’d like to obtain a valid Iowa permit when we move there.
I have been team-teaching all the CCW classes here in Barry county with Sheriff Dar Leaf for the past 4 years and he can vouch for my character and my ability to teach and to carry responsibly. I am also a former Marine. I have just published a book on CCW titled “Blood in the Streets:
Concealed Carry and the OK Corral”. You can find out more about me by visiting my website at www.skipcoryell.com. I understand that Iowa is a “may issue” state and that you have the sole and final say in who carries and who does not. In order to help us find a place to live where we’ll be happy long-term, please explain our policy on CCW, requirements, procedures, etc. I tried to call you n person, but could only leave a phone message. Please feel free to call me in person. (269)838-5586
Thanks for your time.
Skip Coryell
I remember pressing the “send” button and then waiting. I recall being very anxious about it and coming back to my computer every 15 minutes or so to hit the refresh key. I came back again, again, and again - for 4 whole, agonizing days! I remember hating the concept of placing my ability to protect my family into one man’s hands. In Iowa, there is no appeals process, and when it comes to CCW, the Sheriff’s word is final. If he turned me down, then I’d have to live elsewhere. Finally, on Tuesday, November 21, 2006 at exactly 4:56 PM, Sheriff Denniston sent me the following reply:
Skip.....
We would be happy to have you and your family move into Jones County. Sounds as though you have done your homework and I have to agree that Jones County is a great place. Not only because I’m the Sheriff but I grew up in Anamosa. I am very easy regarding the permit issue and if you bring your paperwork and a letter from your Sheriff I’m sure we can get you going.
Mark J. Denniston
I breathed a heavy, RKBA sigh of relief and smiled. I immediately called my wife and told her it was a go.
I remember when we first moved to Iowa that my wife was excited about all the extra time I would have on my hands. After all, I wouldn’t be leading causes anymore, no more politics, no more fighting for the right to keep and bear arms. Her glee was short-lived. Funny how life happens sometimes. Just a few months ago, I was elected to the Board of Directors for IowaCarry, so I am once again firmly entrenched in the struggle to keep and bear arms, bringing all my experiences with the Michigan fight, to the great Hawkeye state of Iowa. Since our move here, Sheriff Denniston has read the first edition of “Blood in the Streets” and enjoyed it. Since, by Iowa statute, the Sheriff has sole discretion over what training is required for CCW applicants, he invited me to teach all the CCW applicants here in Jones county. I was pleased to accept the offer. And that’s how I became a Hawkeye. (I think that’s a bird or something. I should look that up.)
Note: In 2010, after years of hard work, public education and political lobbying, Iowa passed an excellent concealed carry bill into law, backed by IowaCarry Inc. and the National Rifle Association.
Note: For the complete story on Concealed Carry in Iowa, go to www.iowacarry.org. Join the talk forum, and become a member of the organization. Help us advance the right to keep and bear arms. Help us make it fair in the Hawkeye state. While you’re there, leave us an encouraging word and don’t forget to make a small, online monetary donation. After all, freedom isn’t free.
“When faced with a weapon-wielding madman, I don’t hide beneath a desk, cowering in the hopes that he’ll shoot someone else and then move on. I don’t roll the dice and hope for the best. Instead, I take responsibility for my own defense, and I attack. That’s what real parents do.”
Virginia Tech Massacre
On April 16th, 2007, Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. It was the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. All that day and next, I listened to the news coverage and was sickened by the unnecessary loss of life. It was such a dreadful shame. The next day I couldn’t take it anymore, and I wrote the essay below called “Cower and Die - The New American Mentality”. The next week on April 23rd, I appeared on the Deace in the Afternoon show on WHO radio AM 1040 in Des Moines. For two hours I answered questions from Steve Deace and from callers. Since then thousands of people have read “Cower and Die”. It remains to this day my most widely read article. I’ve included it below. The radio podcast of the WHO radio interview can also be listened to by logging on to my website at www.skipcoryell.com. Every time I think of mass murderers and the government officials who enable them, I grow more and more sickened.
I’m a stay-at-home dad and the primary caregiver for our 1-year-old son. Even now, as I type this article, there is a 40 caliber semi-automatic pistol on my right hip. I carry a pistol 24/7, 365 days a year. Sometimes it’s a nuisance, but I will never kneel at the feet of a madman and whimper while he shoots me and the ones I love. Instead, I will take careful aim, and double-tap the center of exposed mass until the murderer falls to the pavement, no longer a threat to the innocent in society. When faced with a weapon-wielding madman, I don’t hide beneath a desk, cowering in the hopes that he’ll shoot someone else and then move on. I don’t roll the dice and hope for the best. Instead, I take responsibility for my own defense, and I attack. That’s what real parents do. They protect those unable to protect themselves, and they do so aggressively and without apology.
Yesterday, a crazed, lone, gunman, executed 32 people at the Virginia Tech campus. Today, politicians (our leaders) are calling for more gun control. Call me daft, but I don’t get it. Where’s the logic? Isn’t one definition of insanity “doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results?” We’ve tried gun control. It didn’t work. It failed us, and it failed our children. It failed us at the University of Iowa in 1991. It failed us at Columbine High School. It failed us in Pearl, Mississippi, and now, it has failed us again in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Why is everyone on television acting so surprised? This is logic 101. If you disarm everyone except crazed murderers, then only crazed murderers will have guns. Let’s face it, most people don’t have the expertise or the guts to disarm a gun-wielding madman.
Forgive me for sounding harsh, but gun control is killing us. It’s killing innocent children all across our country, and it’s been killing them for decades. Why? Because we don’t have the guts to stand up to our politically correct legislators and tell them no! Enough is enough! Stop killing our children! All across America, even in states where tens of thousands of people have been trained and licensed to carry a gun for protection, people are hiding under desks, jumping from 2nd floor windows, and cowering beneath the muzzle of a deranged killer. As a general rule, the people who cower in the face of determined evil, are the people who die in a pool of their own blood. It’s time America – it’s time to fight back!
But do the people of America still have the guts to stand up against elected officials? I honestly don’t know. Are we Americans? Are we men and women determined to protect our families, or have we all become sheep, content to follow the shepherd over the precipice to the jagged rocks below? Columbine and Virginia Tech are not good omens. The victims there were unarmed sheep, who hid beneath desks and chairs, simply cowering before they died. They said “Baa” as they were being slaughtered.
Something basic to our society has to change. It’s time to stand up and fight while we still have the means to do so. And if our politicians tell us we can’t protect our children in a daycare center, or a post office, or a church, then we show them the door. We vote them out. We recall them. We take out the trash. That’s the attitude that America was founded on. Somewhere along the timeline, America has lost its way, we’ve lost our instinct for survival; it’s no longer “fight or flight”; it’s just plain “cower and die”.
Where did Americans ever get the idea that they could successfully outsource personal protection? I know a guy who won’t trust another man to mow his lawn, because only “he” can do it right and to his own satisfaction. But that same particular, finicky person walks around all day long trusting total strangers, who aren’t even present, to protect the one thing he cannot replace – his own life.
A word of caution: don’t think that the terrorists aren’t watching, because they are, and they’re taking notes. Once they realize that most Americans are nothing but sheep waiting to be slaughtered, then it’s Katie bar the door, because every terrorist and his grandma will be over here killing as many American infidels as they can. America has ceased to be the “land of the free and the home of the brave”, and instead has become a target-rich environment, the “ignorant and blissful land of cower and die”.
The police cannot protect us; it was never so. The police have their place and their job, but it was never their responsibility to be the bodyguards of every man, woman and child in America. That job is a personal responsibility that most of us have forsaken. It is my job to protect my family; that’s why they’re called “my” family and not “your” family. I feel silly saying things so basic to life and truth, but, sadly enough, these things need to be said. Trying to outsource personal and family defense will always be a losing proposition.
Take responsibility for protecting yourself and the ones you love. Go ahead and outsource your lawn, but no one can protect your family better than you. It’s your job! Do it! Don’t give in to the “cower and die” mentality. Instead, crawl out from under that desk and fight for your life. It’s a decision you can live with.
Conclusion
I’ve talked about a lot of tough topics in this book, so if you are still with me, still reading, still soaking it all in, then we are probably of like mind. (I just can’t imagine a died-in-the-wool anti-gunner reading this entire book any more than I could read an entire book by Hillary Clinton or Al Gore.) I know people these days are very busy, so I thank you immensely for giving me the time of day. I know that I have very little time as well, and I’d like to read more, but I just can’t. So, again, thank you for your time.
A lot of what I’ve said in this book is just my opinion, and should be taken as such. In retrospect, I suppose I’ve been a little harsh on anti-gunners in this book. It has been said, that every person has a right to express their own opinion. I agree with that. But let’s face it, some people are idiots, and their stupidity and lack of common sense is a danger to the rest of us. However, I do believe that every person has a responsibility to research the important issues and to then form a rational, well-thought-out opinion. Any idiot can talk, even parrots move their beaks and words come out. (Look at some of our Hollywood celebrities.)
Having said all that, I have more respect for a liberal who has taken the time and effort to thoroughly research an idea before drawing a conclusion, than for a lazy moderate who simply raises his finger and follows the prevailing winds. Being educated on the important, world-shaping issues of our day is the only responsible action. Of course, it is my personal belief that anyone who takes the time to research the facts, will, inevitably, come to the “right” (spelled “conservative”) conclusion. For all my liberal friends out there who educated themselves and still get it wrong, I still love you. (Hate the sin, but love the sinner.) Just don’t make the mistake of basing your opinions solely on your emotions, because feelings change from day to day, and can never be counted on over the long haul. Use the best tool you have – your brain.
If you take away nothing else from this book, please remember this one thing: “Your family is counting on you; they are your responsibility and no one else’s.” Always remember that and take it to heart. If you are a sheepdog (in my opinion all parents have the responsibility of guarding their flock, i.e., their family) then you have a responsibility to train, research, and learn all you can about the art of defending the innocent. To all of you sheepdogs (law enforcement, military, CCW holders, parents) you should read over the next chapter very carefully. It is a list of places you can go to make yourself better at protecting your family and other innocent people in society (sheep).
And with that, I wish you all the best as you guard the flock. Keep your eyes peeled for the wolf, and when he shows up, well, what can I say? You’re the sheep dog. Do what you gotta do. Survive. And thank you for your service to our country.<
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Suggested Resources
Below is my list of books, websites, and schools, where you can learn more information related to protecting yourself and your family.
Books:
Author, Massad Ayoob
“In the gravest extreme “
“Gun-proof your children “
“The truth about self-protection “
“Stressfire—gunfighting tactics for police”
Author, Ted Nugent
“God, Guns, and Rock-n-roll”
“Ted, White, and Blue”
Author, Kathy Jackson
“The Cornered Cat: A Woman’s Guide to Concealed Carry”
Author, Mark Walters & Kathy Jackson
“Lessons from Armed America”
Author, Lt. Col. David Grossman
“Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill: A Call to Action Against TV, Movie and Video Game Violence”
“On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society”
Author, Brian Jeffs & Nathan Nephew