Summer Corporate Games

OC Tanner competed in rifle and pistol shooting events over the weekend.

On Thursday was the rifle shooting competition. Robert Dunn, Mike Atwood and David Sohm comprised the rifle team. The targets were 50 feet away, and there were rounds of fire. Ten shots from the prone position, (laying flat on your stomach) ten shots from the kneeling or sitting position, and then ten shots from the standing position.

OC Tanner scored 475 in the rifle event, which placed us in 7^th out of 13 teams in our division.

We did much better in the pistol competition. Robert Dunn and Dave Sohm comprised the pistol team, and we both shot Robert’s Browning Buckmark.

There were three rounds of shooting with the pistol, 2 rounds of ten shots at 15 yards, and then 10 shots at a 25 yard target. Robert and I both took photos of our targets, since the scoring staff keeps them after the competition. At first glance of the photos, we felt we had given a respectable performance.

Imagine our surprise when, during the medals ceremony, OC Tanner was named as the second place winner in our division. We scored better than one of the ATK Teams, who have been a dominating force in the past.

Personally, I felt very gratified to have won the silver medal, and look forward to more competitions in the future.

US refuses to sign Arms Trade Treaty. . . . until after the election.

The U.N. has been trying to hammer out a treaty that would restrict (allegedly) imports of weapons from other countries, among other things. According to proponents, this wouldn't affect the U.S. too much, as if pricing Benelli, Beretta, Sig, HK, Glock, Stoeger, FN, Springfield XDs, ATI, Metro Arms, Taurus, Rock Island Armory and probably a few other brands out of the market isn't a big deal.

So today I read that the U.S. had refused to sign the treaty and thought, YAY! I wasn't expecting this from Secretary of State Clinton and the President who once supported a bill that would essentially ban all gun stores in the U.S.

Then I saw an Edit to Add link. http://turtlebay.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/07/27/us_backs_away_from_supporting_global_arms_trade_treaty

The United States told delegates that it did not have "core" objections to the draft treaty under consideration, but that it needed more time, saying that while the U.N. negotiations have been playing out since July 2, they only received the final text in the past 24 hours.

In other words, they like the treaty, but if they signed it now they for sure wouldn't get re-elected, so they want to wait until their position is secure.

In other words http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsFR8DbSRQE 

In other words http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/over-a-barrel-meet-white-house-gun-policy-adviser-steve-croley/2011/04/04/AFt9EKND_story.html 

 Buried on the last page of this Pro-Obama article from a Pro-Obama paper, is this glimmer of hope for the Pro-Obama reader.

Regarding a meeting between the President and Jim and Sarah Brady;

On March 30, the 30th anniversary of the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, Jim Brady, who sustained a debilitating head wound in the attack, and his wife, Sarah, came to Capitol Hill to push for a ban on the controversial “large magazines.” Brady, for whom the law requiring background checks on handgun purchasers is named, then met with White House press secretary Jay Carney. During the meeting, President Obama dropped in and, according to Sarah Brady, brought up the issue of gun control, “to fill us in that it was very much on his agenda,” she said.

“I just want you to know that we are working on it,” Brady recalled the president telling them. “We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.”

In the meeting, she said, Obama discussed how records get into the system and what can be done about firearms retailers. Her husband specifically brought up the proposed ban on large magazine clips, and she noted that even former vice president Dick Cheney had suggested that some restrictions on the clips might make sense.

“He just laughed,” Sarah Brady said approvingly of the president. Both she and her husband, she emphasized, had absolute confidence that the president was committed to regulation.


This article is, of course from 2011, when the President was still saying he had absolutely no knowledge of the ATF smuggling guns into the hands of Mexican Drug Cartels in order to "get records into the system" to paraphrase.

This was also before Obama admitted to the world that he and Eric Holder had been having personal discussions regarding Fast and Furious by claiming Executive Privilege in order to obstruct a lawful Congressional investigation.

But I very, very clearly remember Obama saying during his campaign that he supports the second amendment.


The man is a liar who has been caught in his lies several times, and if he is willing to go to such great lengths, and put so many lives in danger over one issue that he personally believes in, what's to stop him from screwing around with a different 'minor' issue that you might feel strongly about?

For example, deportations of mexicans has increased by quite a bit under the Obama administrations, and yet he is now trying to buy mexican votes by implementing elements of the Dream Act. I think it's racist, or at least disrespectful to Mexicans to use them like poker chips just so that Obama can keep his great job for four more years.

My two bits on the colorado shooting

Having been a communication major, I notice the way things are phrased in news reports.

In a CNN opinion piece,  this guy made the claim that "And in a crowded setting, such as the movie theater clouded with tear gas and smoke, it would be virtually impossible to distinguish the bad guy with a gun from the good guys with their guns."

This claim is tossed out as an automatic reaction, to discourage people from carrying guns for personal protection. While it may be accurate sometimes, the 'virtually impossible' line is misleading. Every situation is different, but most of time it's pretty easy to tell who the murderer is.

When someone says that it would be virtually impossible to distinguish between good and bad, the implication is that it would be virtually impossible for the POLICE to distinguish, because the police will surely be arriving any second, and therefore you really don't need to carry a gun.

Of course in this case, the police showed up in time to grab the guy as he was getting into his car in the parking lot.

But as even more striking evidence that the line is at best a knee jerk reaction, and at worst a deliberate deception, see this video.

It is a video of a crowded business, where there are two men with guns. Do you think these patrons were confused about who was good or bad?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t5f5AwkkiY





 In this case it was pretty easy, in some cases it might not be so easy to distinguish, but it's wrong to lie in order to discourage people from taking responsibility for themselves.

Just a thought

When a hospital has a sign out front that says, This is a place of healing, no weapons allowed, what they are really saying is that they don't want any violence. After all, a gun or a knife isn't going to give someone asthma or cancer like a cigarette would.

They are also saying that they are uncomfortable with the idea that anyone entering has the capacity for violence. But to enforce this policy, and to help patients feel comfortable, they hire security guards, and even give them Tasers.

Granted, a Taser has a better chance of subduing a dangerous person than a flashlight, but let's think about this for a second.

The people who run the hospital have such a disdain for violence that they are willing to hire men as unarmed security guards (they also get an insurance discount.) A big purpose for these men is to protect the patients from dangerous people. And yet the hospital administrators know that the men they have hired are willing to use violence to solve certain problems. These type of people are scary to the higher-ups, and so they don't trust them with effective tools to actually stop a dangerous person.

That's why they are only given Tasers.

If they allowed these guys to have guns, the administrators would be handing weapons over to dangerous people. After all these men hired as guards are willing to engage in violence, that makes them dangerous, right?

So they send these guards out, to protect the patients from danger, but without the best tools to protect themselves. They are willing to put these guys in danger, and yet they are prevented them from being able to protect themselves. Maybe the guards lives aren't as valuable as the patients and staff of the hospital. These are dangerous people, willing to engage in violence, after all.

Just a thought.

Nevermind that the hospital itself is about a quarter mile long, and has multiple floors. There are no metal detectors or pat-downers at the entrances, and if you know the name of a patient, the nurse will buzz you in.

And at any one time there are maybe two guards on duty, that I've been able to observe.

College students should be allowed to be armed.

A few weeks ago I was listening to Bob Mayne's Handgun World podcast, and he did a show about concealed carry on campus. I felt the need to chime in to give some arguments that people could use, in favor of concealed carry on campus.




Here is the letter I sent him.









Here is the text of the letter I sent to Bob, excerpts of which were aired in episode 176.



Hey Bob, it’s Dave from Utah.



I’m writing to comment on your show about the show about concealed carry on college campuses.



I wanted to give you a perspective as someone who has actually carried a weapon while attending school in recent years.



We hear a lot of arguments against allowing permit holders to be armed while they attend classes, I’d like to address some of them.



1. “There’s a lot of underage drinking in college. Putting guns into these same kid’s hands is a terrible idea.”



First of all, very few people actually have a permit and carry a gun everyday. It’s most people’s right, but very few of us actually jump through the hoops and go through the hassle of lugging around a handgun everyday.

In most states, the minimum age for a permit is 21, so anyone who has a permit is not going to be underage if they drink. Plus, in Utah, it’s illegal to drink alcohol while carrying a weapon, and it’s illegal everywhere to be drunk and carrying a weapon. So there are legal protections in place to stop people from drinking and carrying a gun.



Also, I don’t know of many binge drinkers who jump at the opportunity and responsibility of carrying a gun.



2. “A gun in the classroom stifles academic debate.”



No it doesn’t.



I had a class where the teacher told all of us that he had a permit and carried a gun, due to a scary experience of one of his friends, plus the Trolley Square shooting. He said that he had decided he would never be defenseless. Another student piped up and mentioned that he carried a gun for similar reasons. I didn’t show my hand, though I was also armed.



In our small class of 20 or so students, everyone in the room knew for a fact that there were 2 handguns present.



Guess what happened? A vigorous debate about the safety and usefulness of carrying a gun ensued for about half the class time, and several more vigorous debates occurred throughout the semester. Why? Because university students are adults, and had more important things to do in that class than worry about guns.







3. “Students aren’t trained like police officers are, and would likely shoot everyone else instead of stopping the mass shooting.”



-How do you know they aren’t trained? Good training is certainly available to them.

-We need to get the notion out of our heads that we carry guns to ‘stop’ mass shootings. We carry guns to protect ourselves or the people around us, if we ever need to. (To quote Rob Pincus)



Students should arm themselves in order to protect themselves, not the entire student body. True, if a mass killer came into a room with an armed student, the student may very well end the massacre, but only because he was protecting himself.



Armed students would not increase the danger to the whole campus, but we shouldn’t make the argument that we should allow this because it would make everyone safer.



-Acting to rescue another person in danger is a very tricky proposition, as well as a tactical and legal gray area. You need to be really cautious if you decide to intervene, because you will not likely have a complete picture of what is happening. You will have to process information like “Who is the bad guy? Who has the gun? Is the shooting still happening? Is this a mass shooting? Could it be firecrackers?”

The bad guy will be thinking, “Look another person to shoot.” BANG BANG BANG!



Experts can go back and forth about how to approach this problem, but everyone will recommend that the safest thing to do would be to barricade yourself where you are, and only shoot if the bad guy tries to get into your area.



Some people may tell themselves that they would help anyone in need, but let’s think about the Zimmerman/Martin incident. The people in that gated community are all good, decent people, and they called the cops when they heard someone screaming for their life, but how many charged out started throwing punches at the attacker? (Zero)



There are also examples of normal people endangering themselves to help someone else, but the point is, that until you have been in a life threatening situation, you don’t really know how you will perform, so we shouldn’t be arguing that armed students will keep everyone on campus safe, because that would be a false sense of security. For that reason, it’s an argument that’s easily defeated.



4. “In an active shooter scenario, the police may accidentally shoot the armed student instead of the bad guy, therefore we shouldn’t allow anybody to be armed.”



Maybe.



Or maybe the armed student will be expecting the police to arrive at any second, and when they hear the cops yelling than they will put their gun in its holster and point toward the shooting, or comply with police commands.



Also, it would be pretty easy for the police to distinguish between good and bad. The good guy would comply with their commands, and the bad guy would point his gun at the cops and try to kill them.



5. “The police are trained enough and competent enough to protect the students. It’s their job after all.”



My school had a police force, and during the day 2-3 officers were on duty, plus 3-4 unarmed security guards. Physics state that it would take the police 3, 4, 5 minutes to arrive to any given point on campus from any other given point on campus.



Let’s look at a real life example. When Suleman Talovic started shooting people at the Trolley Square mall, it took two minutes for the first call to 911 to take place, and TWO MINUTES after that first call, Sergeant Oblad arrived at the mall. TWO MINUTES. That’s incredible. This was 6 in the evening on a Tuesday night, everyone was going home from work, and Oblad managed to get there in two minutes. The Salt Lake Police department had recently undergone training from the local gang unit on how to respond to exactly this type of situation, and enough officers were in the right place at the right time to be able to respond and put Talovic down quickly.



But even before Sgt Oblad arrived, Officer Ken Hammond, who was having a Valentine’s dinner with his wife, drew his off-duty weapon and engaged Talovic, diverting his attack and herding him into Pottery Barn Kids. Oblad and Hammond hooked up, and fired about four shots from cover at Talovic before the SWAT detectives arrived and killed Talovic with their long guns.



It was a textbook response, literally. The Salt Lake Police department’s response is now being studied and taught as the best possible response in an active killer scenario. But guess what?



In the 3-4 minutes between the start of the massacre, and Ken Hammond confronting the shooter, Talovic shot NINE people.



Five of them died.



They are still dead to this day.



Even with the world’s best response time, a response time that was far better than the law of averages said it should have been, the police can only minimize the damage in a situation like this. Maybe the first victim didn’t have a chance, but the people inside the Cabin Fever store certainly had ample warning, at least the two seconds required to draw a weapon.



But mass shootings are very rare. Any University campus is open to the public, and anyone can come on. They might pose a threat to individual students who have a right to defend themselves just like anybody else does. Women, unfortunately, are targeted much more than men for face to face crime, and women across the country are victimized on college campuses.



Check out this article about a recent terrifying day at my alma mater, the University of Utah. http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/53333131-78/fotheringham-bail-woman-court.html.csp



The man walked into a female locker room to watch girls dress. Later that afternoon, he groped a woman inside a building. Then long after the sun set, he cornered a woman getting into her car, groped her, and tried to physically control her. He stopped when she bit him on the finger, and she was able to close her car door. Her bite on the finger actually helped the police identify him.



But in a world where such horrible, terrifying random attacks can happen, how is it BETTER to disarm the targets of such attacks? This poor girl was doing the right thing, studying hard late into the night at a university, she didn’t want to be the target of some dangerous pervert, and now she is going to be having nightmares and other emotional problems for years. How is that preferable to this same young lady shooting the guy six times when he became aggressive and dangerous?



What it comes down to, is that nobody can respond faster to an attack than the victim of the attack, and the victim has a much better chance of surviving if they can fight back with a gun. You and I know this, but we need to be able to articulate this concept in real human terms to those whose minds can be changed.

BYU's Honor Code and Standards

Recently Brittany Molina created a viral sensation when she posted a note somebody gave to her, and a picture of her dress that the note commented on.



BYU has an Honor Code that all students are expected to abide by, part of which stipulates that skirts and shorts need to reach the knee. Now, Miss Molina's skirt clearly isn't reaching her knee, but she is also wearing leggings, and nobody could argue that this is immodest. But the policy does say that skirts must reach the knee, so in the mind of the note writer, this ^ is unacceptable.

So every woman that attends BYU should be wearing knee length skirts or shorts, right?












Whew, for a University that doesn't allow short skirts, that is sure a lot of leg flesh showing. It sure seems hypocritical for BYU to disallow this kind of dress for everyday students, presumably for morality and modesty purposes, and then make the official sports uniform for many female athletes short, as if fit female athletes aren't sexually attractive.

The fact that they do this, and then with a straight face talk about Standards, is one of the reasons why I went to the U, (and excluded myself from a decent PR program) instead of going to BYU. University of Utah is not exactly a den of iniquity, where the women wear nothing but thongs and body paint. In fact, if you are 5 minutes late to church at the Institute of Religion, you WILL NOT find a parking spot.

But at BYU, you can be assured that the women will all be covered up.




Unless they happen to be in great shape, and have tried out for a sports team. Now, the BYU runner is wearing shorts that are shaped like shorts, which are slightly more modest than the horrible bikini design of that sinful Duck behind her.

BYU does have a women's uniform that adheres to the Honor Code.



The reason why men's and women's basketball uniforms have knee length shorts is because that's the current fashion. Basketball uniforms used to be ridiculously short.



Thank goodness that's not a trend anymore.

Coincidentally, the reason that modern women's uniforms are so short also has to do with current trends, plus comfort and ease of mobility while engaged in the athletic event. That's a valid reason. But BYU shouldn't pretend like it's not also attractive, and therefore running afoul of their Tradition of Honor and Standards.

I got these from the official BYU drill team Website.

"The mission of the Cougarettes is to provide the very best high quality halftimes and dance performances all while maintaining the standards, spiritual focus, and atmosphere of Brigham Young University and the LDS Church."

and on the Welcome page we see this-




With all the immodesty that's officially sanctioned at BYU, there is not a rash of on-campus orgies. People, for the most part, behave themselves and act like adults. On the flipside, even if you require all women to look like this



there will still be people who are going to have sex against the rules.

Right now BYU has official uniforms that violate it's own modesty standards, which many see as hypocritical. They either need to fully commit to it, or they need to let people act like adults and, you know, 'govern themselves.'

Mormon church in need of reform?

Recently I read this article published in the Washington Post.

Mormon Church in Need of Reform

I think the timing may have had something to do with a certain Presidential candidates good performance in the polls. . . . .

It starts off giving a snapshot of recent gallup polls concerning church members, pretty standard stuff about how the general public perceives us, and then she throws in a line about how the church "isn't exactly welcoming of outsiders."

Huh?

How many missionaries are there in the world trying to bring 'Outsiders' into the church?

And of course, using that phrase paints the picture in the mind of her readers of a group of paranoid zealots, afraid of anyone or any culture that is different from the fundamentalist, small town Utah culture. Many readers probably instantly thought of the scary polygamist cult leader on Big Love.

She then goes on to establish her credentials as an Ex-Mormon, even naming a few former Mormons who are famous (I guess).

Her explanation for being in the church is that she had prominent Pioneer ancestors, whose story was well established in her own family, and that the 'mantle' of her pioneer forebears weighed heavily on her mind. She also talks about how the church is a big part of her identity.

But then, when she gets to college, she starts to discover differing viewpoints. Different types of scientific evidence seem to contradict claims made in the Book of Mormon. She's concerned and brings her concerns to the people around her. These people get angry with her, tell her to just not read that stuff, and to just get married and not worry about it. One guy told her it's ok to question, as long as you don't tell anyone else.

Distraught at the advice given to her, and not wanting to risk leaving her community, she eventually leaves the church. Doing so gets her shut out of her parents home for five years, and some of her friends shunning her.

She tries to make the argument that the church is too stuck in it's ways, and needs to get with the times, and that this is what you vote for if you vote for Romney.

It occurred to me that the people who she talked to, who gave such bad advice, are idiots. They obviously don't understand the doctrine. Nowhere does it say that we should avoid learning about history and science. Nowhere in the scriptures are women told to turn off their brain and just get married if they have doubts. Nowhere are mormons told to respond by shunning or disowning a friend or family member with doubts.
That's BullCrap. Very Easily Dismissed if you understand the doctrine and know for yourself that God and His Son are at the head of the church.

Then it occurred to me that her story of her faith was not about how she studied the scriptures, and prayed, developing a familiarity with the God, and how she therefore knew that the Book of Mormon is what it claims to be. She didn’t talk about the moment of comprehension when the truth of it all became perfectly clear in her mind.

No, her foundation was that her ancestors, over a hundred years ago, had joined the church and walked across America, and that her all her current friends and family were Mormons.

She hadn’t paid attention. Her whole life, she had missed the point of three hours of church each week, plus youth activities. Sure, she probably learned a lot of facts along the way, memorized all the talking points. But the biggest takeaway point of nearly every discussion, and the subject of a whole hour of sacrament meeting once every month, is that each church member needs to learn for themselves that the church is for real. It’s also known as gaining a testimony.

A testimony is gained by study and prayer. You need to study the Bible, Book of Mormon, whatever, and then ask God for a confirmation of the truth of what you read. It’s not a Ouija board; if you have no intention of acting on the answer you‘ll receive, then you probably won’t get anything. Why? It would do you no good if you weren’t intending to act on the knowledge.

When a person has faith in something, they believe in something so strongly that they are willing to act on their belief. When you pray about the Book of Mormon, and intend to let the answer define your life from that moment forward, then you will start to see some results, answers to your prayer.

The reason it works this way is that God cares about every single person. He wants all of us to become better people. He wants all of us to improve, to be the very best that we each can be. He doesn’t just want Keith Sohm to learn improve himself and make sure his kids are enrolled in church, he wants Keith’s grandson Dave to learn the truth and humble himself, and become a better person, and want to return to God’s Presence.

He wants the best for everyone, individually.

Carrie Sheffield, the writer of the article that appeared in the Washington Post, missed this. She didn’t take it seriously. She attended church to keep up appearances, because her Pioneer forebears and all her friends would be disappointed if she didn’t.

Lacking the spiritual foundation, she couldn’t dismiss the callous and wrong advice given to her. She couldn’t tell herself, when confronted with slyly crafted ‘evidence’, that she KNEW that the Book of Mormon was real, and that it didn’t matter what anybody else said.

She coasted through all those years of instruction, her mind elsewhere, or just content to be descended from people who had great faith. And now she has admitted as much to the whole world.

And by the way, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints IS God’s church. The Book of Mormon IS a religious history of a society that lived on the American continent before even the Vikings discovered it. The priesthood IS in fact the power of God to bless and heal, shared with worthy men on earth, right now. I know that it is. And you can know too.