peacefuljeffrey

And I would argue that the rate of bullets going into people bodies has decreased -despite- the number of CCs issued. If you want to check it out, then dig a little deeper into the numbers and see which states have CCs and which don't and which states have had the greatest reductions in gun related crimes. Further, The Center for Disese Control hasn't found a correlation? Well, geeze, I guess NASA or the Department of Agriculture hasn't found a correlation between the Brady Bill and the decrease in gun related violence either. Big whoop. I think if you look at the Department of Justice, you'll see a pretty damn direct correlation. WOO-HOOOO! I just KNEW that if I poked around long enough, I'd find that fellow skydivers, just like my fellow pilots, tend to be rationally pro-gun ownership. Quade, if gun violence has declined while many CCW permits have been issued, I don't see how you can say that it's "in spite of" the permits. That's like saying that if you got a flu shot and then didn't get the flu, it's probably in spite of the flu shot that you stayed healthy. You asked about in which states the violent crime rates declined. John Lott used the reports from ALL COUNTIES IN THE UNITED STATES for a comprehensive look at that question, and found in a study (a peer-reviewed study) that violent crime declined MORE in states with CCW permits than in states that are restrictive on guns. Don't forget, with Ohio joining the ranks just this month (and their CCW to take effect in April, I believe) there are THIRTY SEVEN STATES that have SHALL-ISSUE concealed firearm carry permit laws enacted. If a state did experience a decline in violent crime, there's a better-than-1-in-2 chance that it WAS a CCW state. More than half the country's population lives in states that have CCW laws. CDC's study of the effectiveness of gun control laws like Brady, "Assault Weapon Ban" etc. found no compelling evidence of the success of any of them. CDC examined the results of FIFTY-SOME-ODD studies that were looking for results from gun control laws. Since CDC has been notoriously anti-gun for decades, one would expect that if they could have possibly slanted their study to show some small advantage to gun control laws, they would have. It is quite telling that they did not. The data was there, it was public, and if they had fabricated a pro-gun-control conclusion, they would have been leapt on by pro-gun criminologists and researchers and exposed further as liars. CDC is the department that funded Arthur Kellerman's famous study that purported to prove how having a gun in the home increased your likelihood of getting killed with a gun by "43 times" over the possibility of using that gun for defense. That "study" is now thoroughly debunked. Kellerman never made his data available for peer review, using bullshit excuse after excuse. He did not study ALL counties in the U.S. like Lott did: he cherry-picked the worst-cases to make things look badder than they are. One major flaw in his study: he did not count anything less than KILLING your attacker as a successful defensive gun use. That means if you truly repelled an attack by simply showing that you were armed; wounding an attacker but not killing him; firing a shot that missed... these did not count as defensive gun uses to his study. But in reality, the use of guns in such ways DOES save the lives of the would-be victims, does it not? So Kellerman is a has-been whose lies are fully exposed now. He also included neighborhood drug dealers and other acquaintances as "loved ones killed by a gun" to pump up his statistics -- rather like the way the CDC calls drug dealers up to age 25 "children" to come up with their preposterous "13 children a day are killed by guns" stats. Did you ever notice that the number claimed has been declining? It became 12, then 10, now I've seen 8, I think. Something must be going right, regarding guns. The number of actual children killed with guns has been declining EVERY YEAR since statistics began to be kept. Remember, every year that passes sees MILLIONS MORE FIREARMS owned by the general public than the year before. A net increase in guns owned every single year gives lie to the idea that gun control is EVER resposnsible for any decline in crime that takes place. If that were true, there would have to be a net DEcline in the number of guns in circulation -- and that has never occurred. Look at Chicago, NYC and D.C. They all have de-facto gun bans, since the '70s or so. They also have some of the highest murder and gun crime rates in the country. You want to blame other states where it's easy to get guns? Why then do the attackers GET the guns in other states but go BACK to where they know victims are legally forced to be unarmed to commit their crimes against them? Hmmm? Could it be that they don't wanna push their luck with people who could easily be licensed to carry a gun for protection? Open your mind. The claims of the gun-banners just do NOT make rational sense. ---Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Fortunately, JadedLady survived to tell the tale of her refusal to yield to greater experience. Yes, I'm as surprised as you are that she got back into the plane for another jump on the same day, particularly with injuries. But as I said, she survived -- and the important thing is I'll bet that NOW she is more familiar with the notion of letting more experienced skydivers guide your decision-making. I'm a low-time jumper -- 54 as of this weekend. I have the benefit of being a private pilot, so skydiving never really did scare me, being in the plane never scared me, and canopy control, as has been said, came quite naturally. But there have been days when others have told me "don't jump." In particular, Dave Cole and J.C. Perren have been two instructors who KEPT me from jumping when I was hot to do so and probably would have, unwisely. I made a sort of mental decision to force myself to remain open to guidance from those I KNOW are more knowledgeable and experienced than I am. You will never know what might have happened on a windy day when they advised you not to jump and you didn't jump: what you will know, is that you will be able to jump on some other day. I'm usually a go-forward person, strong in my belief that things have a way of working out, so it was difficult for me to accept that there are just many things I don't yet know about this sport, and ONLY time and jumps will teach them to me. Allowing that learning to proceed at the pace it naturally adopts has been a wonderful life-lesson for me. Skydiving is actually making me a better person. Back to the subject: JadedLady is probably a lot more understanding of why it's best sometimes to let the experience of others override your enthusiasm for getting up right now, today, winds be damned. And because of her experiences, she'll probably carry that wisdom into other areas of life. One hopes, anyway. ---Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Hello everyone! Since this is the place for introductions, I'm here to introduce myself. My name is Jeffrey. I live in West Palm Beach, Florida, and was born and raised in Smithtown (Long Island), New York. I've been in WPB for 7 years. Back in 1991 I was in college, and did a static-line jump from 3,000 at Skydive Long Island. Then I did another one at Duanesburg, NY later that year, and then another jump, this time AFF I. (I had not known of the existence of AFF-type jumps!) Alas, it was too expensive for me at the time, so I didn't do another jump until '96, back on L.I. I did two that summer. Fast forward to the recent past. In 2001, I found myself financially able to finish working on my private pilot's license (which I had begun in my teens, ca. 1989!). I got my license on September 21, 2002. While I was training, I used to fly out to Pahokee a lot, so one day I rode the Skydive America bus back to the hangar and asked questions and got a ride in the red, white and blue Otter. (That was a blast! I had jumped only from 182s!) I didn't begin training, though, until summer 2003, and I did AFP jumps in a sort of informal program with Dave Cole, formerly of Skydive America (now defunct). He and some others were keeping things alive at Pahokee, doing occasional tandems to keep a plane in the air. They hung on just long enough for Ron and his crew from Tecumseh, MI to make it down here with their Super Otter, and now things are hustlin' and flyin'! WE HAD THE FIRST SKYDIVE SOUTH BEACH BOOGIE THIS WEEKEND!!! It sure was a lot of fun. Lots of people were there to jump and spectate, and Mirage and Birdman and some others were there, plus Brian Germain of Big Air Sportz (he is one great guy. Brian held a canopy flight seminar and Q/A in the FBO after Saturday's skydiving. He's super-approachable and super-knowledgeable. He's also the designer of my new used Lotus 170 (airlock). That's right, after renting renting renting, I finally have my own rig, a Javelin and a Lotus. Yes, don't worry, I did buy beer. I have nothing but intensely happy and positive things to say about Skydive South Beach. The staff have expanded into the hangar that I'm told used to be used for skydiving some years ago. People were saying it was like old times. There are even still black diamonds on the door from when Olav had his office there! If you find yourself able to, make sure to get to SoBe (not to be confused with the South Beach by Miami -- this one is out at the SE corner of the big lake in the map of Florida) and jump there. If you could only have seen the sunset we had last night, on the second and last day of the boogie... you would have made arrangements to move here. I look forward to good learning and good times as a skydiver, and as a friend of other skydivers. Peace. ---Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"