A University of Illinois professor, Charles “Stretch” Ledford, has been tagging along Guns Save Life endeavors for much of last fall, shooting video for a project of his.
Yes, it’s a real pistol. A Jennings .25 auto I think. It’s a future Chicago gun, and its previous owner told me when he gave it to me ten plus years ago, that he reckoned it had about 400,000 miles on it as it was the gun he carried for personal protection in his various cars over the years for probably 15-20 years.
I hung it on the tree on a whim and here it is…
In any event, the video give a nice showing of the the community among Guns Save Life members. We enjoy ourselves, sharing great food, fun and fellowship. We’re active and proud of what we’re doing and we’re making a difference.
If you would like to join, here’s the application. In fact if you sign up, you can sign up a friend for just $10 more.
As for Mary Kay Mace: While it’s terribly sad and tragic her daughter was killed in Northern Illinois University, could she really say she wouldn’t want someone like me or another skilled, licensed gun owner to be able to carry my firearm in that classroom on that fateful day? Someone skilled and capable, willing to draw and return fire instead of letting an evil lunatic execute students as they huddled under their seats? Doesn’t Mary Kay realize of these lunatics commit suicide as soon as they encounter meaningful resistance, just like the two last week?
Here’s the story and the video.
‘Nothing Says Peace on Earth Like a Handgun for a Christmas Ornament’
By Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg
Meet the folks at GunsSaveLife.com, an Illinois nonprofit
(The Atlantic) – John Boch, the president of GunsSaveLife.com, isn’t joking about his Christmas tree decorations. He and the members of the organization firmly believe more firearms in the hands of trained citizens are the route to a safer society. Based in Illinois, the nonprofit is dedicated to protecting the rights of gun owners and promoting education around gun safety. On the GunsSaveLife.com blog, Boch concurred with recent remarks from the National Rifle Association’s Wayne LaPierre, focusing on gun-free zones as the problem, not the solution to school shootings.
Charles “Stretch” Ledford, a filmmaker and assistant professor of multimedia journalism at the University of Illinois, tackles this highly polarizing issue in a short documentary, below, called Handguns and Humor in the Heartland: A Gun Rights Group’s Unlikely Activism. Ledford spent this past summer and fall meeting members of G.S.L. and documenting their slogan-powered publicity effort, which dots the sides of highways with signs like the classic Burma Shave signs. In the documentary, members speak candidly about their values, providing a more nuanced look at the pro-gun side of the national debate raging in the wake of the Newtown tragedy.
In moving contrast, Mary Kay Mace describes losing her daughter to a mass shooting at Northern Illinois University in 2008. “I don’t have a sense of humor about deadly force,” she says. “I just don’t.”
For more work by Charles “Stretch” Ledford, visit http://vimeo.com/channels/stretchphoto.
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