I’ve got a class scheduled tonight at the Cabelas in Lehi, Utah.  I haven’t talked much about CCW related stuff on this blog yet. 

One thing that I would like to get out there is that I teach a lot of folks for free.  I will teach the class for free to anyone who is a student, faculty, or staff at any Utah school.  I don’t care if you’re the janitor.  Bring some ID that proves you work in a school, or attend a Utah college, and your class is free. 

Also, anyone that is currently in the military, whether active duty, reserve, or guard, the class is free for you too.

Here is my reasoning.  For the military, that is just personal.  You guys work your butts off to protect the rest of us.  You’re usually underpaid, overworked, underappreciated, and have the pleasure of deploying for really long stretches of time to very sucky places filled with angry scumbags that want to blow you up.  This is one way FBMG can say thanks.  Besides, with all of the actual experience our military has now, that is exactly who I want carrying concealed weapons in public. 

As for students and school staff, anyone reading this from outside of Utah needs to realize that we’re actually allowed to have guns in school here.  Damn right. 

It was a battle to get CCW recognized in school, and even once it was recognized as legal, the University of Utah sued the state, saying that their “academic freedom” gave them the right to ban guns.  So we went to war.  Finally, the UofU got their collective asses handed to them, and they had to back off.  I was involved in that fight, and was one of the CCW instructors that got to testify in the senate against the U.  I don’t want to give the impression that I did much, I was just one of a great many.  And Utah has some awesome pro-gun activists. 

The timing for this was interesting, because the last hearing was the day after the Trolley Square shootings, one of the worst mass murders in this state’s history.  I was the instructor that volunteered to talk about mass public shootings.  I told the senators that if we banned guns on campus, then it was a matter of time before another mass killing occurred. 

The ban bill passed the committee.  (we already knew it would, that’s politics) But we built up such a huge swell of public outcry that the legislature shot the thing down.  The people won.  The academics lost. 

Sometime passed, all the predictions of students doing stupid stuff with guns turned out to be just as false as usual.  Then came Virginia Tech…  That very same morning the anti-gun imbeciles at the U were grousing around about how they needed to reexamine their ban on guns, and how they needed to bring the ban back. 

Well screw that.  Not in my state.  We immediately announced we would be teaching students for free.  Not only that, we immediately spent a big chunk of our own money advertising in campus newspapers that we were offering free firearms instruction. 

So I teach students and teachers for free for two reasons.  First, I want more guns in school.  In most states, schools are a giant hunting preserve for psychos.   Second, I want to get more people with “skin in the game”.  The more people I can get carrying in school, the harder it will be for the panic-stricken, ivory-tower, hand-wringing, bed-wetting, anti-gun academics to ban them again. 

Plus it makes me feel like I’m giving my finger to authority, which makes me feel kind of cool. 

Since I started doing this, I’ve taught a ton of people.  I don’t have any actual stats, but I’m going to guess that I’m probably one of the busiest instructors in the state.  I’ve taught a shocking number of students at this point, and it brings me a tiny bit of joy to know that I must be pissing off some Liberal Arts and Classical Basket-Weaving Professor somewhere. 

I teach at FBMG and Cabelas.  If anyone reading this is in one of the above groups, or knows anyone in one of the above groups, send them my way, and I’ll get them taken care of.