If you are a socialist liberal and/or voted for the current campaigner in chief, please do not take this class. You have already proven that you cannot make a knowledgeable and prudent decision under the law… If you are a non-Christian Arab or Muslim, I will not teach you the class with no shame; I am Crockett Keller, thank you, and God bless America.
Keller, certified by the state of Texas to train people to qualify for concealed weapon permits, is under investigation by the state’s Department of Public Safety for failing to comply with regulations prohibiting him from denying service for ethnic, racial or religious reasons (presumably Obama voters are not a legally protected group).
Keller defends his radio ad (quoted above) as “common sense”: “The fact is, if you are a devout Muslim, then you cannot be a true American… Why should I arm these people to kill me? That’s suicide.”
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- If You Have a Concealed Carry Permit, Should You Be Able to Carry That Gun Into Other States When You Travel?
Anyone providing a government service should not be allowed to discriminate on immaterial grounds — and making up material grounds isn’t allowed. Just like pharmacists who don’t want to dispense birth control; if you can’t do the job, don’t take it.
Ignoring the actual law, yes, a person should be able to decide to whom to provide their services. Especially for “stupid” reasons: they’ll be out of work quickly enough.
Of course, it is possible that I put too much faith in the reasonableness f others.
You definitely have too much faith in the reasonableness of others. Consider: would Keller be advertising himself as a bigot if he did not have faith there were plenty of other bigots out there who would support him?
I wouldn’t want anyone with the level of unprofessionalism indicated by that ad to teach me anything (though I have to admit that I am in the unprotected class of Obama voters).
“I will not teach you the class with no shame”… Does that mean he WILL teach the class WITH shame?
While it’s grammatically ambiguous, I don’t think it’s unsound. Perhaps it would be less objectionable as “I will have no shame in not teaching you the class.”
“Do you believe that a private instructor SHOULD have the right to deny instruction to ______” If you fill in that blank with black people, Jews, or any other minority except Muslims, the vote would have gone very differently.
I don’t know that it would have been that different… the idea is, can instructors be forced to teach classes to people they don’t want to. People don’t like the teachers being forced to do something they don’t want to do.
However, that’s the trade-off… if you want to teach the class (and make the income from teaching the class), you have to follow the regulations associated with that class, which includes taking all qualified comers. If you don’t want to take all qualified comers, then you can’t teach the class (more correctly, you CAN teach the class, but you can’t give the students credit for taking the class they need to get their carry permit).
If he really dislikes Muslims and Obama voters so much that he cannot teach them, fine… but he should lose his license to teach carry permit classes. He can, of course, continue to teach whatever other classes to whoever will hire him, and take or reject any customers he likes. But if he wants to be able to give his students the credit they need to get their carry permits, he needs to take everyone the state considers qualified to take the class. He can have one or the other, but not both.
He’s not working for the government. He can teach who he wants, just as a Muslim gun instructor can refuse to accept women or men without beards. This is America. You have a right to carry a gun, not to be trained to do so.
Trouble is he’s certified by the state to teach. If he accepts the certification, he needs to accept the riders.
I’m assuming that A) the regulations spelling out who can take the class and who can’t have existed since before this guy started teaching it, B) that he knew he was not allowed to discriminate in teaching the class when he got his license to teach it, and C) when he got his licence to teach the class, he promised to follow all the rules and regulations. If all of these facts are true, he’s a guy who doesn’t keep his word, which is something I thought Texans disapproved of.
Also, he’s apparently kind of stupid. Let’s assume that Texas is full of Muslims who want carry permits so they can assassinate concealed-carry-permit-class teachers. This means that as they apply for licenses, they have to identify themselves to whichever state agency issues the permits. This means, as the gun-freedom lobby likes to point out, the government has a list of all of them. Unless their plan to assassinate all the carry-permit-class teachers is timed perfectly, there will be time between the first killings and the last… time for the police to stop the rest of the killings, thus increasing each potential victims chance of surviving. If you don’t teach them the class, they don’t get the permits, which means no list, which means that ALL of the intended victims will die. (Of course, in the real world, where “Muslim” and “homicidal maniac” are not coequal terms, none of this applies… but I don’t think this guy lives in the real world full-time.)
He’s welcome to teach gun (or any other) classes in any manner that he chooses… except for the classes required to obtain a license or permit, for which the government will decide who is authorized or qualified to take the class. Put another way, the government subsidizes his income by requiring that people take a class, and allowing him to deliver that class (and business must be good, if he’s in a position to turn away customers). He wants the benefit (income from people taking the required class) without the responsibility (teaching the class to everyone qualified, including people he doesn’t like, as required by the regulations of the state). And AGAIN we come to “he must be kind of stupid”, because if he just made his views well-known, the people he doesn’t like would choose all by themselves to take the class from someone else.
Not taking sides here, but how would you feel — after the fact — if you were the flight instructor who had given flying lessons to the 9/11 hijackers?
I do not think that he believes that most Muslims are potential terrorists, rather he would not want to find out that an alumnus of his class used that knowledge to commit an act of terrorism.
One does not have to condone Mr. Keller’s his behavior, choices, or opinions in order to understand where he is coming from.
He’s not teaching people how to shoot other people, he’s teaching people how to NOT shoot other people. At least, in the carry-permit class.
How will he feel if a person he turned away from gun-safety class accidentally shoots someone?
Validated.
Really? Because if either the victim or the shooter has a halfway decent lawyer, he’s going to get tagged with financial liability.
James, the flight instructor was teaching the students how NOT to crash. I think the analogy makes sense.
His radio ad is obviously flawed. Socialist liberals don’t want to carry a weapon. They want to tell everyone else that they can’t. I will point out though that he says “please” and “thank you”, so the guy is certainly polite.
The only thing that complicates this even slightly is his being government-certified, and whether that certification includes constraints on his right to refuse service.
In a private enterprise situation, the service provider / business owner must be free to refuse service to whomever they choose, on any basis they wish, whether or not you or I would think their basis is reasonable. The alternative is effectively a form of slavery, forcing the provider to work for someone else against their will.
Are you saying, Zirbert, that if I own a grocery store I should have a right to put up a sign that says “No shirt, no shoes, no white skin, no service”?
Bill asked – “Are you saying, Zirbert, that if I own a grocery store I should have a right to put up a sign that says “No shirt, no shoes, no white skin, no service”?”
Unfortunately, yes. I think that allowing a bigot to express their bigotry is less evil than forcing someone to serve another against their will. I don’t think a Jewish printer should be forced to print posters for a neo-Nazi rally, or that a black tailor should be forced to sew Klan robes. And if they are to be allowed their freedom, then others – even those you and I may find completely abhorrent – must be allowed theirs as well.
The measure of a person’s support for freedom (of speech, expression, association, etc.) is measured by how much they support it even for those who disagree with them.
And, an everpresent drawback of freedom is that some people will use their freedom to be complete douchebags (to use the technical term). Frankly, I’d rather know who thinks that way, so that I could avoid them.