MA Firearm Safety

Archive for December, 2010

Mark Shean Sr. author of #GUN SENSE, on Amazon.

Outside of your immediate family and/or  a trusted close circle of good like-minded friends, in this day and ‘enlightened’ age, don’t tell people what you have when it comes to firearms. I know that sometimes people may ask you if you own guns, the question, on the surface, may be quite innocent but it can sometimes lead to bad consequences. In this state, and time in history, it is an inappropriate question and you should politely decline to discuss your personal business with someone that does not have a ‘need to know‘ that information.

Your like-minded friends should/will all be on the same page with you concerning their, and your firearm information. Simply put, it is a matter of security. I know  instances where a  firearm(s) have been taken because of  ‘loose lips’. In one case the home owner in question was big on cook-outs and inviting large crowds of  ‘friends’ over. These ‘friends’ would sometimes come with people that the home owner did not know. We will call the home owner Willy, now Willy had quite a nice collection of guns and was very proud of them. He would make sure that everyone had a chance to admire them by bringing people into his house and showing the guns off. They were great ‘show and tell’ material. This went on for a few summers, I had long since given up trying to convince Willy that ‘show and tell’ was a bad practice. One day Willy came home to find that he had been burglarized and 21 various firearms had been taken. I think that more would have been taken but the crooks probably ran out of ‘hands’ to carry them. So far only four have been recovered, that was more than ten years ago.

‘Associates’ that you really don’t  know very well, can innocently mention to someone you don’t know at all, that you are a gun owner, they in turn can casually pass that information on, it only takes one ‘bad apple’ in that chain of people to use that information against you.

Someone who had taken  my class a few years ago called me recently and told me a thief had broken into his car and taken a handgun that was secured with a cable lock, in a locked box out of sight under the seat. He said that he only occasionally left it in the car for reasons I will not mention. I asked him if he had any other valuables in the car that were taken? He said that his GPS was not touched, or anything else, just the gun. Obviously he was specifically targeted for that gun. Possibly someone he knew had knowledge of the hiding place, and brought the correct tool to steal it. I asked him to think hard about who he had talked to about the gun, to come up with a list of people. It probably was not a friend that took the gun, it was probably someone a friend had talked to about the gun, so he needs to talk to his circle of friends to narrow it down. I think it will lead him to that gun, or at least a good suspect.

The main point that runs through this article is this, don’t trust those you hardly know to protect your secrets from others. Keep your gun(s) as private as you reasonably can. Your gun(s) are not anyones business but your own. If a firearm is stolen from you report the theft to the police as soon as you find out. Keep a list of the serial numbers from each gun to aid the police in trying to recover your property. Don’t unwittingly become an accomplice in the theft of your own firearms. That’s my 2 cents.

To read this chapter in full, and any other articles in the #Gun Sense series, it is available as an ebook and a Paperback at Amazon under:
Gun Sense Massachusetts Gun Law Information and Common Sense Firearm Safety By Mark R. Shean Sr.

Maybe someone can help me out on this one, when did people start calling New Years Eve ‘first night’ and why ? If you stop and think about it, for a nano-second, you should know it is the last night of the departing year. The first night of the new year starts after 6 PM on the first full day of  January. The last day of the year is the ‘eve’ of the new year, no different than Christmas eve being the night before Christmas, duh! What am I missing here? Politicians like mayor ‘mumbles’ Menino of Boston  or mayor Bumbag of  NYC seem to think its the ‘first night’ right along with all the ‘lefty’ lame-stream newspapers/media that ignorantly print it/say it on every front page and channel as fact. I just don’t get it?

I remember, in the not so distant past, watching people wearing paper party hats using  little noise makers that you would blow into or spin in your hand, no one was ever heard calling it ‘first night’, ever. Guy Lombardo playing a countdown to midnight.  When did that simple ringing in of the new year turn into a freak show with people jumping around in weird costumes like, (in the words of Slim Pickens from the movie Blazing Saddles), “like a bunch of Kansas City fags“?  Its no wonder we come off as morons to the rest of a world that looks for any reason to hate us anyway.  I just don’t get it? Maybe that is why we are 47th in the world in education, and fading.

Have a safe New Years Eve, and hopefully a happy and safe new year. 🙂 M.S.

I was listening to the news the other day when they reported what I thought was an astonishing statistic, that there were 33 million people in the U.S.  still in debt from what they had bought last Christmas! This being twelve months later, do you find that as shocking as I do? I was never brought up under the good example made by my parents to think that Christmas was the one day of the year set aside which obligated everyone to go broke. That whole notion, I am sure, was the brainchild of retail stores and banks pushing  ‘easy credit’.

Christmas to me means a family get together, a very nice meal, going to the midnight mass thanking God for our blessings. It was never about how much money you could spend trying to ‘one-up’ everyone else. I know that commercialism is not the intended meaning of Christmas, never was. People have been brainwashed to think it is about the ‘things’ you get.

My mother has always said that you get what you need when you need it, at any time of year, and only if you can stay within the budget. I agree.  She is from an era that was devoid of the temptation’s of  credit cards, the ‘buy now pay later’ traps. She is from the era of pay cash or do without until you could pay cash. We need urgently to get back to that way of thinking.

I guess the 33 million people that are still in debt from last year have put upon themselves the added, (needless) stress of how to pay for this Christmas also. The best things in life are free…. It is hard to wean yourself from the ‘easy credit’ trap while trying to impress people with ‘things’….

Start by getting back to the basics,  just being glad that your family is together and well, by enjoying each others company. People do not love one another based on what they can buy each other, that is not love.  Simple thoughtful and caring actions are the real measure of love, not ‘things’.  The whole world would be better off  without the traps of  ‘easy credit’. May the true Spirit of Christmas find you and yours well.  🙂

 MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Mark Shean, submitted 12-7-2010