The Dan Lee Report

I was born in Worcester Massachusetts, but now reside near Nashville Tennessee. I paid $100 for a STATE APPROVED gun safety course required for a handgun carry permit in the state of Tennessee, & then an additional $115 to the State of Tennessee’s Dept. of Safety, as well as being fingerprinted (every digit) & having my handgun model recorded by officials.

Yet somehow If I want to return to my home state of 36 years, where I was born, I will now have to disarm & leave my personal defense weapon at home. Yes that’s right. I can drive a 2 ton weapon into the state of Massachusetts on my Tennessee drivers license, while across this country’s automobiles are the number one thing that kills & often dismember our nations teenagers, yet I will be stopped at the border &/or probably arrested if I bring my firearm into Massachusetts, even though I have paid my due. Of course I do have the unreasonable option of paying to fly into Massachusetts, paying for taking a second redundant hand course safety course approved by THAT State to the tune of another $100 & a couple of days of my time, & then paying Massachusetts for a hand gun carry permit.

Since I’ve already paid here in Tennessee, that would of course constitute Governmental “double dipping”. Also, while I am in the process, I will be there with no self defense weapon, & fully vulnerable to armed thugs in Massachusetts who unlike me, HAVE been arrested before. Or wait! Do I really have that option? Or do I have to be a resident? So far I haven’t been able to get a straight answer anywhere. This description on eHow.com seems to point to a very “over complicated” process that is designed to discourage my right to bear arms. In part is reads: “You will be required to justify your request in writing. Make your request as detailed and specific as possible. Valid reasons for requesting a concealed handgun include personal threats, being in a high-risk profession or routinely carrying large amounts of cash.”

Oh really? Not according to the recent Supreme Court Ruling in Heller Vs. The District of Columbia since the core holding in D.C. v. Heller is that the Second Amendment is an individual right intimately tied to the natural right of self-defense. Do not criminals shoot people in the streets? Do I not have a right to protect myself in Massachusetts under the Supreme Court Ruling? Or will we have no consistency in our country with regards to citizens rights under the Constitution?

As it stands I can’t go home while maintaining my 2nd amendment right to protect myself, under any circumstances. Yes, that is right. I cannot return to the place of my birth unless I give up my some of my constitutional rights. So what I need is a lawyer who is willing to help me to either mediate a reciprocity agreement with the state of Massachusetts, or to sue for one, to protect my second amendment rights. I am a citizen of the United States, & as far as I know, I should enjoy the same rights under the US Constitution in Massachusetts, as I do in Tennessee. This is not currently the case however.

The framers of our constitution believed that Americans possessed a natural right of self defense, which no government could abrogate. Now mine & others rights are being abrogated, in that we may not return to my own home state unless we give up our right to self defense with an implement that has clearly been deemed reasonable by the highest court of the United States of America, a hand gun.

I am anxious to hear from any natives of Massachusetts who have moved away, & face the same problem as I do. For the purposes of this article, I will call you “those of duel citizenship” since Massachusetts now treats us as if we are entering the state as foreigners. Please contact me if you are interested in supporting my effort to have my legally obtained hand gun permit duly recognized starting in my home state, as well as eventually extending to anywhere else that my constitutional rights are protected. As far as I know, that should be any U.S territory.

*Update* 7/29/08 Passing This Legislation would make all of our lives much easier, save tax payer money for legal costs to the states, & protect our Constitutional Rights.

Please Send me some mail! if you would like to help.
Plain Text (cut & paste) info@danleereport.com

Thanks!
~Dan Lee

We’ve all heard the horror stories. The worst & most embarrassing one I’ve ever seen was this DEA agent doing a Gun safety class in front of adolescent School Children. He makes a HORRIFIC misjudgment in handling a weapon that has a full clip in it, & especially in the presence of children.

The Result? He was lucky. He only shoots himself in the thigh, & the bullet stays there & thank God does not further injure him or the children & other adults in the class.

Watch the video below, & how the children unfortunately used better judgment than the officer who partially tried to save face in the situation. He misguidedly tries to keep from alarming the kids further by picking up a rifle, & trying to foolishly go on with the presentation. The kids tell him to put it down! Good call kids!

Do I feel bad for him? Yes of course I do. However he broke several important rules that are absolutely not to be broken in regard to gun safety. I think unfortunately he got a little too caught up in his dramatic approach to gun safety, & forgot about the gun safety part in the process.

1. On the video, he stated himself that “This is an unloaded weapon. This is an empty weapon.”
he then goes & gets gets a “nothing in my hat, nothing up my sleeve” type confirmation from an assistant asking if it’s an empty weapon, the assistant concurs, but probably only looks in the chamber. The officer does NOT clear the weapon himself by ejecting the magazine, as well as looking into the chamber. As a result, when he locks the slide back, & then releases it, he unwittingly cycles a live round from the magazine into the chamber. Again, He did not treat the gun as loaded, & check both the magazine & chamber himself before handling it.

2. He’s handling a Glock 40 cal, (likely a model 22 or 23 with no thumb safety lever) & not the best weapon to bring into a classroom or demonstration.

3. There should have been no ammunition present in any weapon on his person, or he planned to un-holster for any demonstration. Any weapon he planned to demonstrate with, should have been void of a magazine & had the slide locked back at all times, or disabled with the firing pin completely removed, & devoid of a magazine or ammunition. It would also have been handled very minimally, & placed on a table with the muzzle in the most currently safe direction.

4. Though he eventually points the gun down to possibly put it away (not sure), somehow he gets his finger on the trigger, or gets the trigger hung on something. The gun discharges, & he’s hit in the thigh with what is mostly likely a very damaging hollow point bullet. Hollow point bullets are designed to inflict the maximum damage, without exiting the intended target & possibly injuring an innocent bystander. Also notice that in the commotion, his female assistant hands him the rifle at one point, & has the muzzle pointed at the man standing against the wall!

Now, I believe this officer in his heart of hearts truly wanted to teach Gun safety to these children this day, & had nothing but good intentions for being there. Unfortunately he ended up giving an even better example than was necessary, or safe, by forgetting some of his own training.

I recently took my Handgun Safety course with The Academy for Self Protection in Joelton Tennessee. My instructor was Rob Corcoran. Rob is a former USAF Combat Arms Instructor and Security Police Officer. Rob currently teaches all Handgun Carry classes for A.S.P. He is an NRA certified Pistol Instructor and a Tennessee State certified Pistol Instructor.

Rob’s training skills were very clearly & well defined throughout the 8 hour course. During the training, He always got us to the point of the matters at hand, while at the same time keeping things light enough with a perfect balance of humor, gun trivia, & mechanical composition, without being too distracting from the serious nature of gun safety as a whole. He warned us ahead of time, that if he repeated something several times, it was probably going to be both highly important, & also on the written exam, or part of our firing range test. He covered everything from good/bad gun handling practices, to good/bad guns & ammunition by themselves, & the types that we may encounter in the real world.

Rob’s approach was not only to make sure that we knew how to fire a gun safely, but also that once the bullet left the barrel, there are potentially serious consequences, both legally & morally. His course also covered tips on being a more controlled shooter, which is also important to safety, & limiting your targets to only intended ones.

While my impression on his feelings about handguns was that he’s clearly an enthusiast, I felt that he made it glaringly obvious that a gun is not like a golf club or ball. When you go to the range with a gun & make a mistake, it could mean more than someone getting a concussion from a golf club that’s slipped out of your hand, or a wayward ball. It could mean instant death for you or an innocent bystander, or lives changed forever, & he made that responsibility very clear in his course, by covering Tennessee law on the use of firearms for self defense.

After having completed this course, I can tell you that as soon as he saw someone holding a weapon up with the magazine still in it like in the video above? He would have said: ” Clear that weapon immediately by removing the magazine, & I don’t want any ammunition in this classroom. Period”

He has signs in the classroom to remind everyone.

If you’re thinking about taking a handgun safety course in the middle Tennessee area, I highly recommend Rob & his Academy of Self Protection. I don’t see how the course could have been any better to be honest. After taking it, I’m only reasonably confident that I’ll never have an accident. I say “reasonably”, because one of the sentiments Rob was able to get across was to “never get cocky or overconfident handling a firearm.” The gun is always loaded, period. No exceptions.

~Dan Lee