Blood in the Streets

by Skip Coryell

  But then in 1979 a young champion appeared in the form of a tall, skinny State Representative named Alan Cropsey. Mr. Cropsey sponsored the first “shall issue” CCW bill in the state of Michigan. He fought hard to pass the bill, but it was not to be. Mr. Cropsey was term-limited out of office before his bill was passed. (Alan Cropsey, now a State Senator, is generally considered to be the grandfather of CCW reform in Michigan.)

  But the fight was not over. A fire had been lit, and the flames of freedom were fanned all across the state. Ordinary people fought long and hard to regain their right to keep and bear arms, and finally, on January 2nd, 2001, Governor John Engler signed Public Act 381 into law. It went into effect on July 1st of 2001, after an unsuccessful 6-month court battle by the anti-gun group “People who care about Kids”.

  In July, the first “shall issue” CCW permit was issued in Barry County. The following month, approximately 30 more were issued. Today, there are over 6,000 CCW holders in Barry county, a rural farming county with a population of only 40,000 adults over the age of 21. (According to the 2000 census.) I am proud that 15 percent of our adult citizens are sheep dogs, and that the number is growing every month. I’m proud to be a part of that, and I’m proud to be the one who trains them to be safe shepherds of the flock.

  I’ve always found it humorous, though slightly sad, that the anti-Second Amendment crowd warned us for years that if the bill passed into law, there would be “Blood in the Streets”. We would all die. All of us nonviolent, law-abiding citizens would suddenly, and inexplicably turn into cold-blooded killers. And there were always the inevitable references to road rage, shoot-outs just like in the Old West, and Dodge City. So I got to wondering about the Old West, and I did some checking on it. I enjoy history, and I figured the left was wrong about everything else, so maybe they were wrong about the Old West as well. Here is what I found out. It seems the Old West was more like “Little House on the Prairie” than the shootout at the OK Corral. Here are the statistics for some of the roughest, toughest, and most violent cattle towns in the Old West. They were taken from Robert Dykstra’s book “The Cattle Towns”. I think you’ll be surprised.

  Other historians and authors agree that the unbridled reports of violence of the Old West is largely a myth. Of course, there were isolated examples of violence, but the true story of the American West was one of cooperation, not gunfights in the open streets, lynchings and murder. That’s just Hollywood. Let’s face it, Clint Eastwood does better at the box office than Grizzly Adams. Stephen King has better book sales than Hugo Martini. And you may ask, “Who’s Hugo Martini? That’s my point. No one knows, because no one reads his work. (Sorry Hugo.) Why do people read Stephen King? Because his characters and plot lines are interesting. They’re about lunatics, murderers, and supernatural maniacs and sociopaths. Perish the thought, but 100 years from now people will be reading Stephen King’s book “The Shining” and thinking, Wow, people were crazy back then. Sure am glad I didn’t live in that time period. Are there really people out there like King’s characters? Sadly enough, yes, but they are few and far between. I’m sorry anti-gunners, but the Old West was very boring and “safe” by the standards of today’s cities. Dodge City, reputed to be the roughest, toughest, most dangerous city in the Old West, had a total of 15 homicides during its hay day between 1870 and 1885. That’s an average of one per year. So where would you rather live, present day Detroit or the Old West in Dodge City? I’ll take Dodge every time. Detroit makes me nervous, and Chicago and D.C. are downright terrifying.

  So, you can see that the blood in the streets of the Old West was a myth, propagated by Hollywood and others in the media in order to boost book and box office sales. Likewise, the blood in the streets that the anti-gunners are currently prophesying in Wisconsin is nothing short of a lie. It’s a tool they use to scare ignorant people into supporting their political agenda.

  So what’s the lesson here? Stop being lazy! Get off your butt and read and research. Find out the truth instead of passively accepting the bloated breast of the left, suckling on the tainted milk of their infected, intellectually barren mammary glands. (Oh my! That paints a not so pretty picture. Leaves a nasty taste in my mouth too.)

  Grow up people! Educate yourselves and hold your leaders and their willing accomplices in the media accountable. After all, we are “We the people”. Let’s start acting that way.

  “Jesus himself was the most politically incorrect, offensive, person on the planet. In fact, he spoke his mind and was crucified for it by the people who took offense.“

  The PC Gestapo

  Political correctness is the bastion of liberalism, and the bane of American free thought and speech. So much of modern day idiocy can be laid to rest simply by asking this one question: “What would your grandfather have said about it?”

  I can see it now.

  “I’m sorry Grandpa, but you can’t use the word ‘mankind’.”

  Grandpa would cock his head to one side and ask, “Why not?”

  “Because it’s sexist and an insult to women.”

  Grandpa would narrow his eyes and look at you with that omniscient, patriarchal stare.

  “I’ll use what words I want to use, boy! And don’t be giving me any crap about it, or I’ll tan your hide! I’ll be darned if I’m gonna let anybody tell me what I can say and what I can’t say. This is America!”

  I love my grandpa, God rest his soul. He had a way of cutting through all the crap and just telling it like it was. Grandpa grew up in a time when people could speak their mind, and they were allowed to choose their own words without political and social condemnation. I remember my grandpa well. He was a chain smoker and an alcoholic, and he had some strong opinions, which he voiced on occasion. Finally, after two strokes, his entire vocabulary was reduced to one four-letter word: “Damn!” It didn’t matter what I said to him. I would ask a stupid, typical teenage question, and I could see the intelligence in his eyes turn to frustration as he tried to form the sentence on his lips. In the end, all that came out was “Damn”. Sometimes it came out like a shotgun in one powerful blast, while at others, it came out like a machine gun: “Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn!”

  It was a hard thing to watch him in his reduced capacity. I could see the independence and intelligence in his old eyes, but he just couldn’t get out the words. It used to drive my grandmother crazy to hear him cuss on full auto. But my grandpa was old school, and no one told him what to say or how to say it. I like that about old people.

  And I must be getting old too, because I don’t cotton much to people telling me what words I can use, and what words I can’t. Doesn’t that sound a bit like censorship? My children once came to me and tried to correct me on inappropriate words I was using. I responded to them by saying, “Shut up. I’m your father and I’ll say what I want to say.” They were appalled, and immediately launched into a diatribe about what their teacher had taught them at school. I gave them a loving diatribe of my own, and they were quick to get the message. “Don’t censor Daddy.”

  Up until recently, I worked for a major corporation. They were a government defense contractor and had to follow a multitude of government regulations, one of them being politically correct speech. They asked me to edit a corporate training program on harassment, which I did. They defined harassment as any word or action that offends another person. It upset me so much that I almost didn’t make it through the training program emotionally intact.

  It is impossible to keep from offending everyone. I offend people every day. That probably didn’t surprise you. However, I don’t do it just to hurt people. In fact, as a Christian, I should try to not offend people. However, it’s important to note that Jesus himself was the most politically incorrect, offensive, person on the planet. In fact, he spoke his mind and was crucified for it by the people who took offense. There’s a country and western song by Aaron Tippin that says, “You’ve got to stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything.”
Jesus stood for love, and he fell at the hands of the Pharisees who had him crucified for saying things they didn’t like. I like Jesus. He was the original rebel. Jesus made James Dean look like a sissy. No one censored Jesus. And he’s my hero. No one improved the world more than Jesus.

  And yet, the Political Correctness Gestapo are alive and well on planet Earth and doing all the damage they can. After a short hiatus following September 11th, they started poking their furry, little heads up out of their tiny burrows and testing the wind to see if it was safe to come on out and play. I think they were infuriated by thousands of Americans who ran out and bought guns to protect themselves over the fear of terrorist attack. I recently read the following news reports which really ruffled my feathers.

  “Broken Arrow, Oklahoma School officials remove “God bless America” signs from schools in fear that someone might be offended.”

  “Channel 12 News in Long Island, New York, orders flags removed from the newsroom and red, white, and blue ribbons removed from the lapels of reporters. “

  “Berkeley, California bans U.S. Flags from being displayed on city fire trucks because they didn’t want to offend anyone in the community.“

  Now I’ve always considered myself a reasonable man, tolerant of other people’s religious and political views. After all, that’s how I was raised, but this one is really stretching the limits of my patience. So after reading these headlines, I gathered my wits and thought about it for a while before taking up my pen. However, after careful deliberation, I realized that I am not willing to drink from this tainted cup of tolerance or to sacrifice everything I hold dear on the sacrilegious altar of political correctness!

  Those people in Broken Arrow, what can I say about them? Their arrows may not be broken, but they’re certainly twisted. And one thing I’ve learned in my lifetime of bow hunting, a twisted arrow will never fly straight; will always miss the mark; and will never be true.

  And the people from Channel 12 News in New York City should be ashamed of their linguine-spined lack of courage. They watched and filmed as the twin towers crumbled, burned, and then rose again in a cloud of dust, blood and ashes. And what lesson did they learn from this? Did it rekindle their fire of patriotism? No! Did it serve as a personal, spiritual epiphany and bring them closer to God the Creator? No!

  Throughout my 48 years, I’ve learned that all of life can be boiled down into two simple questions: “Who is my master – and – How can I best serve Him?”

  When superimposed onto the people of Broken Arrow, Berkley, and News 12, it all makes perfect sense. Quite simply put, they serve a different master than most patriotic Americans, the ones who do most of the living, working, breathing, suffering and dying in this great country of ours.

  And in Berkley, California, they serve a different master altogether: the God of Tolerance. They sit enthroned high above the rest of us common folk in their ivory towers of “higher education”, spewing out their liberal, brain-dead doctrine of political correctness, all the while demonizing and pronouncing guilt upon anyone who does not conform and espouse their views. (In reality, they worship the god of tolerance, but are the most intolerant people of all.) They shackle innocent people with labels that ruin careers and shatter families. To those who believe homosexuality is a sin, they are labeled as “homophobes”. To those who believe that women and men were created equal but different by God, they are labeled as “repressive sexists”. To those who like to hunt and shoot, they are labeled as “gun-toting” rednecks. And to those who believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, they are labeled as the most intolerant and hateful of all.

  Well, I for one am sick and tired of these demeaning and disgusting labels, and I think it’s time we all stood up, shoulder to shoulder and said NO MORE! I can label myself, thank you, because no one knows me better than yours truly! I have strong beliefs. I’m a compassionate man, a man of conviction and promise. I say what I mean and mean what I say! Believing that homosexuality is wrong and unnatural, doesn’t make me a homophobe, because my beliefs are not based on any imagined fear, but on the Word of God. But at the same time, neither does it make me better than anyone else. We’re all imperfect and in need of divine help. Believing that men and women were created equal but different, doesn’t make me a sexist; it makes me a realist. I’m not going to pretend that women and men are the same just to keep the noisiest 5 percent of the population from bestowing an ugly label on the remaining 95. And I don’t believe that humanity has spent the last 10,000 years struggling to the top of the food chain just to become vegetarians. And most important of all, living for Jesus Christ doesn’t make me intolerant, it makes me strong, and loving and compassionate.

  So I do hereby solemnly and officially reject all politically correct labels. The PC Police can kiss my … as you were, Skip. Calm down now.

  I guess what I’m trying to say is that tolerance has its place, but should never be elevated above America’s love for God, Family and Country. Even in the complex game of geopolitical correctness, patriotism trumps tolerance. And of course, God trumps all; because He is over all. He was not contained in the twin towers, and He did not crumble and die with that violent, despicable act of murder on September 11th. In closing, God still reigns from Heaven, despite any label the PC police may bestow upon Him.

  Here are my labels. I’m a father! I’m a patriot! I’m a Christian! And I will not tolerate any label to the contrary! Get used to it PC police! Perhaps you should become more tolerant of us!

  God bless America! Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition!

  Get your butt off the fence. Do the right thing. It’s time to rebel!

  “You have two seconds to look a stranger in the face and answer this question: Does he just want my money? or, Does he also want to kill me? Not even Freud could make that determination correctly.”

  The Problem of Stress

  There is an old saying, “The bear would have caught me, but he slipped in my shit.”

  Funny things happen when we add stress to our lives, and there are certainly different kinds of stress. There is the chronic stress of working at a job you hate with a deplorable boss, and there is the stress you feel when a man jumps out from behind a car and sticks a gun in your face. It’s the latter stress that we’re concerned with in the personal protection arena, so let’s focus on that now.

  I have been a soccer official for 15 years now, and I can still remember my first game. I was scared to death. There I was, out there in the middle of the field, all by myself, surrounded by players and coaches and people who hated me. Nothing I did or said seemed to make those people happy, and every time I blew my whistle, at least half of them were dissatisfied. But despite my fear, the lump in my throat (which turned out to be my heart) and the adrenaline coursing through my veins, I made it through that first game.

  In retrospect, that’s all I had to do. You’re not supposed to be good at something you’ve never done before. All you have to do is make it through that first time, and then build on your newfound experience. During that first game, all I had to do was survive. And 2,000 games later, I’m still going strong. It’s the same way with personal protection. There is no such

  thing as the perfect gunfight. You will make mistakes; that’s what stress does to you. All you have to do is live. With that in mind, let’s take a look at what happens during a life or death situation.

  The first thing that happens is your heart rate skyrockets. This is due to a huge amount of adrenaline that your body dumps into your bloodstream in anticipation of a fight. My “at rest” heart rate is about 60 beats per minute. That’s fairly slow. But things quickly change when stress is added. When the adrenaline surge happens, I can feel it immediately, and it’s almost impossible to control it once it’s started.

  When your pulse gets up to about 90, that’s when your brain is functioning at its best. You are on high alert status, and there is extra oxygen being pumped to your brain and the rest of your body. But once the h
eart rate gets above 100, nasty things start to happen.

  As soon as your brain realizes that you are in danger, it constricts the blood vessels leading to your extremities. This is done, so that if you are cut, for example on your arm, then it will take longer for you to bleed to death, and you can defend yourself for a longer period of time. Because of the lack of blood in your hands, your wrists may tingle and your fingers may feel a certain amount of numbness. Suddenly, very simple things, like ejecting a magazine, or even pulling back a slide, can become very difficult to do.

  Your brain is also affected; it reverts to a primitive state of mind, where complex thinking and reasoning is next to impossible. At this point, most people can think but one thing: “Oh my god! That’s a gun! I’m going to die!”