I learned long ago...

that you are never too old to learn and that I consider a day that passes where I don't learn something new is a day that I've wasted. I'm 68 years young, learned to shoot long guns as a kid on an Alabama farm; I switched to handguns in the USAF and I'm still learning. I've just purchased my first autoloader, a Glock 30SF, but I've always loved my wheel guns but I'm trying to catch up with the times.

I really don't feel competent to carry as yet - I hope to gain that confidence someday soon, but I'm still intimidated by the autoloader although I feel right at home with my old S&W .357 Highway Patrolman that I bought many, many years ago when I was a brown bar in the AF and have put a few rounds through. Of course it would be a bit too obvious if I tried to carry it as it doesn't conceal very well.

I try to shoot as often as possible to remain familiar with my weapons, especially the new one (the Glock), and I read as much as possible (between Honey-do's) since I'm retired from my airline and military pilot careers.

I have found this website to be very informative and someday I hope to be able to give back to it as much as I'm receiving from all the great infomation available here.

I won't apply for my CWP until I feel that I can competently and correctly assess a situation that requires the use of my concealed weapon and use it within the framework of the laws that govern us today whether those laws are realistic or not. We must understand, at this particular juncture in our advanced (?) society, the laws to which we must succumb to some degree, can and will leave use destitute and begging for a handout to provide for our families if we happen to wrongly ruffle the feathers of the collective as it now stands and assuming we don't have a really good "friend" in high places.

However, with all my heart I fully attend the God-given right to keep and bear the arm(s) of my choice and, as a Life Member of the NRA, I fully support the 2A that protects that right. I abhor the incorrect thinking of the ID 10 Ts who do not understand the real meaning of the word "infringed" and, though their intentions may be based in "niceness," they do not fit in as intended by those more in tune with those who formulated our wonderful and eloquent Constitution.

I join this collection of individuals with the sincere hope of gaining a true and correct knowledge that I can use to further my understanding of how to correctly, competently and legally and, within man's laws, use my weapon of choice to defend my family, myself and my pledge to protect the American way of life.

When I joined the USAF I took a vow and I swore that I would support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I would bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I would obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

I didn't take that oath lightly. Nor did I expect that the President of the US nor the officers (civilian or military) appointed over me would defile the views of the founding fathers. I fully intend to uphold my vow so long as it comports with my interpretation of the regs then in use and the UCMJ. However, I will not succumb to the use of my Constitution as a suicide letter to defeat the true cause and meaning of what it means to be a free man living under the freedoms fought for by all the great Americans who went before me. By the way, I am an American Indian, a minority born of a half-breed father and white mother and I consider myself a free man in the United States of America. But I see my freedoms being eroded by the collective, the politicians of today. That erosion I have taken a vow to fight and I will fight within the framework available to me.

That is why I have joined this assembly and from whom I hope to continue my education of what it means to be a real American.

Please forgive my rapacious verbocity in explaining why I love my God-given freedoms and how I viewed joining this website fits into them... and thanks for reading this far...