In order to participate in the GunBroker Member forums, you must be logged in with your GunBroker.com account. Click the sign-in button at the top right of the forums page to get connected.
Pistol-packing and proud of it
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Stephanie Klein-Davis/The Roanoke Times
"My guardian angel" is how Brenda Coulter refers to the .32-caliber Smith & Wesson that she carries. Coulter, a recent transplant to Craig County and the daughter of a Northern Virginia gun dealer, is just one of many Craig County residents who has a permit to carry a concealed weapon.
Sunday, May 19, 2002
'Good quality citizens are getting them. They're not getting in trouble'
Pistol-packing and proud of it
Craig County's rate of concealed gun permits is the highest in Virginia.
By TAD DICKENS
THE ROANOKE TIMES
On a near-perfect spring day, Brenda Coulter walks along a gravel road near a country church in rural Craig County.
You would think that no one was around for miles. There certainly are no cars moving nearby. The noise out here comes mostly in the form of chirps and tweets from birds and bugs.
And Coulter feels quite safe. Not simply because of the relative peace around her, but because of the piece she has hidden away in her fanny pack. It's a loaded .32-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, light and deadly.
"I've got my guardian angel with me," said Coulter, 41.
And she, like at least 460 other Craig County residents 21 and older, has a permit for it. That may not sound like a lot, but combine it with the state's second-smallest population, and you have a county with the highest rate of concealed gun permit holders in the state, according to state police and census figures.
In Virginia, 3.3 percent of more than 5 million people at least 21 years old have received the permits to carry hidden guns anywhere in the state since lawmakers loosened restrictions on the permits in 1995. In Craig County, more than 12 percent of the adult residents of the relatively crime-free locality have the licenses.
By contrast, in much larger, felony-troubled Richmond, 1.8 percent of people 21 and older may stow a gun out of sight. In Roanoke, 1.3 percent of adults who are at least 21 have permits.
Only Amelia and Surry counties to the east, also rural and lightly populated, come close to Craig, according to the police and census numbers.
Craig County Commonwealth's Attorney Thad Cox said he worried that after the law changed, he would have to prosecute a rash of shootings. He was wrong, though, and pleasantly surprised about it, he said.
"That says a lot about the character of people who live here," said Cox, who as a prosecutor has had his permit for about 20 years. "Good quality citizens are getting them. They're not getting in trouble."
Recent Craig County transplants, such as Coulter, and longtime residents may share permits in common, but many in Craig say that even with the permits, they don't make a habit of carrying around hidden weapons. It's just that in a culture centered on hunting and guns, getting a concealed carry permit is just something you do, many say.
"I guess because it's rural - good hunting territory over here, and good hunters - it's something you grow up with, I guess," said G.D. Fuller as he sat with friends drinking coffee and Cokes and chewing plug tobacco around the stove at the Hunter's Den, a gun and supply shop just outside New Castle.
But it's not all about hometown tradition. Some say they were influenced to seek the permits after watching a National Rifle Association program detailing what it said were attempts by governments to take citizens' guns.
"Why not get one now, before I'm unable to get one?" said Penny Stebar , 34.
Even that response is tempered with a claim to the local hunting culture. Stebar said that her father, grandfather and husband hunt. She used to, but gave it up to raise her children, one of whom has already begun hunting. Her second is getting old enough to start and is excited about the prospect.
"Not that we're obsessed with guns," Stebar said. "We just grew up around them."
Statewide, rural counties dominate the list of permit holders. Only one county of more than 20,000 residents - Henry County, with some 57,000 - is among the top 10. Martinsville, which is surrounded by Henry County, is the only city among the top 25. Portsmouth is the only other city in the top 50.
Suburban Fairfax County, the state's largest, is near the bottom with 1.6 percent. Nor do other Washington suburban counties have large concentrations of permit holders.
Kristi Hoffman, an assistant professor of sociology at Roanoke College, said studies show that rural Southern localities, particularly ones with mostly white populations, are more likely to have guns, and residents are more likely to be concealed gun permit holders. The fact that so many permit holders live in areas with low crime rates makes little difference in the equation.
"They certainly haven't had a crime wave in Craig County," Hoffman said.
Inner cities, despite often staggering crime rates, have the lowest rates of concealed carry permits, she said.
Concealed gun proponents argue that hidden guns will deter crime. But Hoffman said poverty rates, employment levels and other social factors are more important.
"Part of the argument is deterrence," she said. "I think those claims are somewhat exaggerated."
Pocket protector
Stebar, whose family is full of hunters, doesn't own a pistol. She said she used to carry a 9 mm pistol her husband owned, but he sold it. When she needs one, she just borrows it - like the time she went Christmas shopping with her mother at Valley View Mall in Roanoke.
The mall has a no-weapons policy that was recently the center of debate after a gun-rights group filled mall management's e-mail in boxes with protests about the years-old ban. But Stebar had no idea about any of that, nor did she see the obscure notice about the rule, near the bottom of an entrance sign, on the day she walked in, she said.
She carried a borrowed snub-nose .38-caliber pistol in her pocket that day. She didn't need to use it, but just having it made her feel more confident, she said.
"You just never know, especially with two women out," Stebar said. "People are just too crazy. Over here, it's just so laid-back."
Coulter, married with two stepchildren, is not so sure about that. The daughter of a Northern Virginia gun dealer, she said she learned early not to trust too much, whether in bucolic Craig County or bustling Washington.
"Even living out here, you're not safe anywhere," she said. "I've heard stories. I read."
Even so, that fanny pack seems a little slow to open. Coulter said she realizes she might not be the quickest on the draw.
"Wait a minute," she said, joking as she slowly unzipped the pack. "I promise I'm going to shoot you."
Lots of Craig residents say they need to pocket a pistol on their properties for the snakes, coyotes and other varmints they might run into. Helms Hardware & Auto Parts owner Curtis Helms anticipates something else he might have to shoot.
Twenty-five years ago, burglars hit Helms' store twice in three months, costing him about 40 televisions, several appliances, $2,000 from his safe and dozens of guns. After that, he got a burglar alarm, and he started keeping a gun with him. A few years back, after the General Assembly made it easier for people to get concealed gun permits, he got one.
"The main reason I got a permit is I wanted to be legal, being in business and all, if I ever had a reason," Helms said.
He hasn't. Helms doesn't even carry his gun around in the store. But on trips out of town, he always makes sure he leaves heavy.
"I've tried to stay away from trouble, but if it came up, I think I could do it," he said. "You know what I mean?"
Matter of principle
The NRA video, featuring stories about people and communities that the organization said lost their gun ownership rights, got a lot of people stirred up, said Stebar, as well as others who declined to comment on the record.
"That's all you heard people talking about for a long time," she said.
Still, she and the others said they realize that there is no significant movement in gun-friendly Virginia to take away the state's loosened concealed carry laws. No one should even try, she said.
"The people here would not give up their guns," she said.
Such fears have been exaggerated, said Hoffman, the Roanoke College sociologist. Recently, the Bush administration informed the Supreme Court that it believes the U.S. Constitution gives individuals the right to possess guns - an interpretation that reverses four decades of government policy.
But NRA membership is high in rural counties such as Craig, and residents there are more exposed to that organization's push to protect what they say are their rights to carry a weapon, she said.
"I don't think that people need to fear their guns are going to be taken away," Hoffman said. "Both locally and at the national level, gun control is essentially on hold."
Just for fun
The Hunter's Den is the social center for Craig County people who love firearms and chasing after wild deer and turkey. No one there is shy about discussing guns, concealed or not. Fuller, 75, who was squirrel hunting at 10, said he never has a gun hidden on his person. But he said he always carries a couple of pistols in his pickup truck, in the box they were shipped in. He uses them for target practice.
"I'll shoot a pop bottle or paper or whatever," he said. With the concealed carry permit, he doesn't have to worry about the fact that they're usually hidden.
Any conversation about concealed guns in Craig usually winds around to the bigger subjects - culture and education - which residents say dwarf the concealed carry issue.
Craig County sheriff's Deputy Ike Craft is a longtime hunter, though he's better known for his archery expertise. Craft said he remembers that his school bus driver back in the 1960s had a single-barrel Winchester propped up by the bus door during deer season. Once the kids were off the bus, the driver was off to hunt until class let out, he said.
"The kids never thought nothing about it," Craft said. Many spent their free time hunting, too.
He and his peers learned respect for guns and knew better than to take chances with something so dangerous, he said.
Craig County's concealed carry permit holders express confidence in their knowledge of and ability to handle firearms, and say they're passing those values down to their children. Stebar and Coulter, both mothers of two, said their children have an abiding respect for guns.
"They realize it's not a toy," Stebar said. "It kills."
http://www.roanoke.com/roatimes/news/story130723.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
"My guardian angel" is how Brenda Coulter refers to the .32-caliber Smith & Wesson that she carries. Coulter, a recent transplant to Craig County and the daughter of a Northern Virginia gun dealer, is just one of many Craig County residents who has a permit to carry a concealed weapon.
Sunday, May 19, 2002
'Good quality citizens are getting them. They're not getting in trouble'
Pistol-packing and proud of it
Craig County's rate of concealed gun permits is the highest in Virginia.
By TAD DICKENS
THE ROANOKE TIMES
On a near-perfect spring day, Brenda Coulter walks along a gravel road near a country church in rural Craig County.
You would think that no one was around for miles. There certainly are no cars moving nearby. The noise out here comes mostly in the form of chirps and tweets from birds and bugs.
And Coulter feels quite safe. Not simply because of the relative peace around her, but because of the piece she has hidden away in her fanny pack. It's a loaded .32-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, light and deadly.
"I've got my guardian angel with me," said Coulter, 41.
And she, like at least 460 other Craig County residents 21 and older, has a permit for it. That may not sound like a lot, but combine it with the state's second-smallest population, and you have a county with the highest rate of concealed gun permit holders in the state, according to state police and census figures.
In Virginia, 3.3 percent of more than 5 million people at least 21 years old have received the permits to carry hidden guns anywhere in the state since lawmakers loosened restrictions on the permits in 1995. In Craig County, more than 12 percent of the adult residents of the relatively crime-free locality have the licenses.
By contrast, in much larger, felony-troubled Richmond, 1.8 percent of people 21 and older may stow a gun out of sight. In Roanoke, 1.3 percent of adults who are at least 21 have permits.
Only Amelia and Surry counties to the east, also rural and lightly populated, come close to Craig, according to the police and census numbers.
Craig County Commonwealth's Attorney Thad Cox said he worried that after the law changed, he would have to prosecute a rash of shootings. He was wrong, though, and pleasantly surprised about it, he said.
"That says a lot about the character of people who live here," said Cox, who as a prosecutor has had his permit for about 20 years. "Good quality citizens are getting them. They're not getting in trouble."
Recent Craig County transplants, such as Coulter, and longtime residents may share permits in common, but many in Craig say that even with the permits, they don't make a habit of carrying around hidden weapons. It's just that in a culture centered on hunting and guns, getting a concealed carry permit is just something you do, many say.
"I guess because it's rural - good hunting territory over here, and good hunters - it's something you grow up with, I guess," said G.D. Fuller as he sat with friends drinking coffee and Cokes and chewing plug tobacco around the stove at the Hunter's Den, a gun and supply shop just outside New Castle.
But it's not all about hometown tradition. Some say they were influenced to seek the permits after watching a National Rifle Association program detailing what it said were attempts by governments to take citizens' guns.
"Why not get one now, before I'm unable to get one?" said Penny Stebar , 34.
Even that response is tempered with a claim to the local hunting culture. Stebar said that her father, grandfather and husband hunt. She used to, but gave it up to raise her children, one of whom has already begun hunting. Her second is getting old enough to start and is excited about the prospect.
"Not that we're obsessed with guns," Stebar said. "We just grew up around them."
Statewide, rural counties dominate the list of permit holders. Only one county of more than 20,000 residents - Henry County, with some 57,000 - is among the top 10. Martinsville, which is surrounded by Henry County, is the only city among the top 25. Portsmouth is the only other city in the top 50.
Suburban Fairfax County, the state's largest, is near the bottom with 1.6 percent. Nor do other Washington suburban counties have large concentrations of permit holders.
Kristi Hoffman, an assistant professor of sociology at Roanoke College, said studies show that rural Southern localities, particularly ones with mostly white populations, are more likely to have guns, and residents are more likely to be concealed gun permit holders. The fact that so many permit holders live in areas with low crime rates makes little difference in the equation.
"They certainly haven't had a crime wave in Craig County," Hoffman said.
Inner cities, despite often staggering crime rates, have the lowest rates of concealed carry permits, she said.
Concealed gun proponents argue that hidden guns will deter crime. But Hoffman said poverty rates, employment levels and other social factors are more important.
"Part of the argument is deterrence," she said. "I think those claims are somewhat exaggerated."
Pocket protector
Stebar, whose family is full of hunters, doesn't own a pistol. She said she used to carry a 9 mm pistol her husband owned, but he sold it. When she needs one, she just borrows it - like the time she went Christmas shopping with her mother at Valley View Mall in Roanoke.
The mall has a no-weapons policy that was recently the center of debate after a gun-rights group filled mall management's e-mail in boxes with protests about the years-old ban. But Stebar had no idea about any of that, nor did she see the obscure notice about the rule, near the bottom of an entrance sign, on the day she walked in, she said.
She carried a borrowed snub-nose .38-caliber pistol in her pocket that day. She didn't need to use it, but just having it made her feel more confident, she said.
"You just never know, especially with two women out," Stebar said. "People are just too crazy. Over here, it's just so laid-back."
Coulter, married with two stepchildren, is not so sure about that. The daughter of a Northern Virginia gun dealer, she said she learned early not to trust too much, whether in bucolic Craig County or bustling Washington.
"Even living out here, you're not safe anywhere," she said. "I've heard stories. I read."
Even so, that fanny pack seems a little slow to open. Coulter said she realizes she might not be the quickest on the draw.
"Wait a minute," she said, joking as she slowly unzipped the pack. "I promise I'm going to shoot you."
Lots of Craig residents say they need to pocket a pistol on their properties for the snakes, coyotes and other varmints they might run into. Helms Hardware & Auto Parts owner Curtis Helms anticipates something else he might have to shoot.
Twenty-five years ago, burglars hit Helms' store twice in three months, costing him about 40 televisions, several appliances, $2,000 from his safe and dozens of guns. After that, he got a burglar alarm, and he started keeping a gun with him. A few years back, after the General Assembly made it easier for people to get concealed gun permits, he got one.
"The main reason I got a permit is I wanted to be legal, being in business and all, if I ever had a reason," Helms said.
He hasn't. Helms doesn't even carry his gun around in the store. But on trips out of town, he always makes sure he leaves heavy.
"I've tried to stay away from trouble, but if it came up, I think I could do it," he said. "You know what I mean?"
Matter of principle
The NRA video, featuring stories about people and communities that the organization said lost their gun ownership rights, got a lot of people stirred up, said Stebar, as well as others who declined to comment on the record.
"That's all you heard people talking about for a long time," she said.
Still, she and the others said they realize that there is no significant movement in gun-friendly Virginia to take away the state's loosened concealed carry laws. No one should even try, she said.
"The people here would not give up their guns," she said.
Such fears have been exaggerated, said Hoffman, the Roanoke College sociologist. Recently, the Bush administration informed the Supreme Court that it believes the U.S. Constitution gives individuals the right to possess guns - an interpretation that reverses four decades of government policy.
But NRA membership is high in rural counties such as Craig, and residents there are more exposed to that organization's push to protect what they say are their rights to carry a weapon, she said.
"I don't think that people need to fear their guns are going to be taken away," Hoffman said. "Both locally and at the national level, gun control is essentially on hold."
Just for fun
The Hunter's Den is the social center for Craig County people who love firearms and chasing after wild deer and turkey. No one there is shy about discussing guns, concealed or not. Fuller, 75, who was squirrel hunting at 10, said he never has a gun hidden on his person. But he said he always carries a couple of pistols in his pickup truck, in the box they were shipped in. He uses them for target practice.
"I'll shoot a pop bottle or paper or whatever," he said. With the concealed carry permit, he doesn't have to worry about the fact that they're usually hidden.
Any conversation about concealed guns in Craig usually winds around to the bigger subjects - culture and education - which residents say dwarf the concealed carry issue.
Craig County sheriff's Deputy Ike Craft is a longtime hunter, though he's better known for his archery expertise. Craft said he remembers that his school bus driver back in the 1960s had a single-barrel Winchester propped up by the bus door during deer season. Once the kids were off the bus, the driver was off to hunt until class let out, he said.
"The kids never thought nothing about it," Craft said. Many spent their free time hunting, too.
He and his peers learned respect for guns and knew better than to take chances with something so dangerous, he said.
Craig County's concealed carry permit holders express confidence in their knowledge of and ability to handle firearms, and say they're passing those values down to their children. Stebar and Coulter, both mothers of two, said their children have an abiding respect for guns.
"They realize it's not a toy," Stebar said. "It kills."
http://www.roanoke.com/roatimes/news/story130723.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
SUBMARINE SAILOR,TRUCK DRIVER,NE'ER DO WELL, INSTIGATOR,AND RUSTY WALLACE FAN