Gun Free Zones in Your Hometown

                           by Jamie Spaulding on Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 7:25pm

       Friends the time has come to speak up. The Martin and Union City mayors and aldermen are going to try to ban the carrying of legal firearms by permit holders in local parks.

      We just beat this silliness on the state level and they are going to shove it down our throats locally. Let's stop this in it's tracks. Monday the Martin mayor and board of aldermen will have their meeting to consider this at 5:15 PM. The Union City Mayor and board are meeting Tuesday night. It has already passed informally in Martin, whatever that means. Weakley County permit holders need to be there. Solid citizens with carry permits need to remind city officials that killing sprees happen in places where the law abiding are, by law, unarmed.

      Someone also needs to remind them that permit holders are more law-abiding than the public at large. They need to be reminded, as well, that there may be liability issues at stake for the city should a permit holder suffer grave bodily injury or death at the hands of a criminal while disarmed by a city mandate.

     Here's a newsflash for the uninformed. Because of an improper reference in Tennessee Code Annotated, unless the park has the main entrances posted, the carrying of legal firearms by permit holders in city parks has been, if not legal, certainly not illegal for several years. The ban on firearms in parks and other public recreation areas (sec. 39-17-1311) specifically bans those arms listed in Sec. 39-17-1302a which are:
" (1) An explosive or an explosive weapon;
   (2) A device principally designed, made, or adapted for delivering or shooting an explosive weapon;
   (3) A machinegun;
   (4) A short barreled rifle or shotgun;
   (5) A firearm silencer;
   (6) A hoax device;
   (7) A switchblade knife or knuckles; or
   (8) Any other implement for infliction of serious bodily injury or death which has no other common lawful purpose."        Note here that handguns do have a common lawful purpose. The state proved this by issuing handgun permits to allow for self-defense.  So since posting became mandatory, if your parks have not been posted, people who know the law have already been carrying there for several years. Can anyone name one instance of trouble this has caused? Let's stop this garbage here and now. Gun Free Zones are an invitation for any maniac to come and slaughter.

Letter to the Editor U.C. Daily Messenger: published Wed. July 29, 2009

by Jamie Spaulding on Saturday, August 8, 2009 at 2:51pm

     The Tennessee constitution plainly says “the legislature has the power to regulate the wearing of arms with a view toward preventing crime”. Last Tuesday night I witnessed (thanks to WOBT-TV) a city council regulating the wearing of arms. There is no question that it is contrary to the constitution. I believe the courts will settle this rather quickly.

     What I found most intriguing is that there are at least two councilmen, based on their arguments in favor of banning legally carried handguns in city parks, who are members of the “cultural elite“. Those well-meaning, “enlightened”, if somewhat arrogant, individuals whom, because of divine providence or their superior intellect, have attained a station of power, regardless how miniscule that station. Their life’s mission is to protect you and me, the ignorant masses, from ourselves. Our nations’ capitol is full of their kind. They honestly believe that we are incapable of knowing what is best for us. I teach that if you are too ignorant to be trusted with your own defense, how can you be trusted to govern yourself? Their answer is simple. You can’t. Those in the “cultural elite” forget that we are the boss. We loan power to the government to do its job. If it ceases to do its job, we have the right, and the obligation to take that power back.

     Fifteen years ago the people of Tennessee, like others across the country, reclaimed the right to go armed for our defense because the government was failing miserably in this regard. Studies showed that in counties where the law-abiding were permitted to go armed, violent crime was significantly lower than in counties that severely restricted the rights of armed citizens. Justice Dept. studies showed that armed citizens killed three times as many criminals per year as the police did. This study also showed that, in shooting incidents involving armed citizens, innocent parties were harmed two percent of the time. “Not good” you say? The same study showed that, in shooting incidents involving police, innocent parties were harmed eleven percent of the time. Ask any cop and he’ll tell you it’s true. If I am being beaten, robbed, stabbed, or shot at; there is no question in my mind who is the perpetrator. The police don’t have that luxury, unless they, too, are the victim. No one can protect you or your family better than you. It’s that simple. Over two and a half million times a year, private citizens use a gun to stop a crime. That’s once every thirteen seconds.

     Lastly, Mr. Cranford and Mr. Harrison, I don’t carry a handgun because I expect trouble. I carry a handgun because I realize trouble can come when I least expect it. If I thought I needed a gun to go to your park, I wouldn’t go. Can you both promise me I won’t need it? I sincerely hope so, because that’s exactly what you are doing. Patrick Henry asked, “Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety and equal justice to us, than in our own hands?…..” Thomas Jefferson said, “… let your firearm be the constant companion of your walks…” Sorry Mr. Jefferson, not if you live in Union City. I invite the Union City city council to take one of my classes. You may find, as I have, that the people who obtain carry permits are the best informed, and the most responsible of all our citizens. They are the greatest resource this country has. All the ingenuity, wealth, charity, and goodness of which our country can boast is because of these uncommonly, common folk. They are the true sons and daughters of Liberty. They continue to confound the “Cultural Elite”.

Daddy Daughter Dance

by, Jamie Spaulding on Saturday, February 19, 2011 at 1:21am

   Tonight I had the pleasure of accompanying my daughter to the Annual Hillcrest Elementary Daddy/Daughter Dance. I was amazed to see so many of my Goodyear co-workers there with the apples of their eye. I couldn’t help but think about the fact that this time next year our jobs will be gone.

    As I looked around at the men that I have spent a good deal of my life with, I realized that these are good men, hard-working, honorable, family men. Not the slackers that many outside of the plant seem to think make up the majority of the workforce. I consider it an honor to work with these men. 

     I watched the girls and their dads having fun dancing and laughing and wondered if the girls knew the concerns hidden behind their fathers smiling faces. I decided that they didn’t. It’s a dad’s job to see that his family’s needs are met and these girls have faith in their dads. 

    The truth is that I do too. These are the kind of men who won’t flinch when times get tough. They are men from the heartland of America. Not the namby-pamby, Hollywood types, who run to their therapist when the pressures of their vain existence become too much for them to handle. I know that most of them have talents and smarts that Goodyear has never tapped. That’s Goodyear’s loss. 

    There was more character in that room than has ever been in an Akron board room. I realized that if these men ran a business during tough economic times, their first concern would be for their employees. I also realized that with men like these in our community, we are going to be fine. This may be naïve but I honestly believe that the good guy always wins in the end. The Daddy/Daughter dance reminded me that we have more than our fair share of good guys.