The Latin expression “ad nauseam” means “to point of nausea.” My nausea threshold is pretty low early in morning, I must admit. To add insult to injury, I always have to ask same question – and endure endless, whining answers – every time I teach a new concealed handgun class.

“Why do you want to carry a firearm?” I ask a new crop of students.

“Well, I wouldn’t, except . . .”

“I won’t actually carry it, but sometimes I have to drive through really bad neighborhoods . . .”

“I don’t want a gun, but my husband thinks I should have one . . .”

And so on. Ad nauseam . . .

Each student acts somehow furtive, somehow ashamed, as though they are doing something they wouldn’t want to tell their mothers about.

Their mother’s mothers would be turning in their collective graves over this ridiculous attitude!

A firearm is a tool, and our grandparents and great grandparents knew it very well. Yes, a firearm can certainly kill. So can a power saw, and I know what I’m talking about. I almost watched my adopted brother bleed to death from such a horrific accident. Screwdrivers and ice picks are among most popular murder weapons. And an automobile is deadliest machine of all! Automobiles kill many, many more people than those killed by firearms each year.

So which of these devices do you think we should ban?

Tools, including firearms, do not get up and do evil deeds by themselves. I tell my concealed handgun students, again and again, there is no such thing as an “accidental” discharge. There is only a negligent discharge. If you learn safety rules, and make them a part of your every instinct, firearms are no more dangerous than any other tool. And they are far more useful!

Oh, I can hear your collective gasp of horror all way down here in Texas. Yes, dammit, firearms are useful!

You constantly hear claims that firearms are killing kids left and right. The simple truth is that more kids are killed playing high school football each year than die from firearms related incidents, including suicide! Another fact that might interest you is that zero percent – that’s zero percent – of kids who are given firearms and proper training in their responsible use ever commit crimes with those firearms. The firearms used in juvenile/young adult crime are all illegally obtained anyway.

Yet firearms are used by law-abiding citizens to prevent a staggering 2,500,000 crimes each and every single year! And on almost every single occasion, no shot is ever fired.

Now tell me truth. If someone told you about a tool that could prevent 2,500,000 crimes per year, and didn’t tell you it was a firearm, you would definitely call that a useful tool, wouldn’t you? Of course you would!

So why does everyone choke on idea that firearms are useful?

My students have come to me because they each have made a decision to take responsibility for their lives and lives of their loved ones. It is a difficult and courageous decision, mark of a true adult. They have faced and accepted reality that police nearly always come anywhere from minutes to hours after crime is committed, and therefore are incapable of protecting victim.

The men and women who come to me for concealed handgun instruction have recognized this, and they have decided not to be victims. They have decided, like courageous five aboard Flight 93, not to go quietly to rear of airplane and call home.

They have decided, like founding fathers of this country, to bear arms for lawful and moral purposes. This is not an act of cowardice. It is an act of great courage. Our forefathers who took up arms pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Those were not mere words then, and they are not just words now. Everyone who chooses to bear arms today is making same pledge.

Sound familiar? It certainly should! Subsequent to horrors of 9/11, those very tactics took a president with a 49% approval rating – danger point for any smart politician with an eye on history – and launched him to highest approval ratings of any president in American history. It enabled passage of abomination called PATRIOT Act (quickie review here: "Label it unpatriotic to question . . .") which gutted our Constitution and ended our way of life forever. It brought average American on street (who is a fundamentally decent human being) to support bombing of a barren and helpless 10th century country right into submission in order to punish sins of a few evil fanatics.

And, of course, those tactics also made old dream of an Afghan natural gas pipeline a reality.

Dubya may be pushing limits with his planned attack on Iraq. He is running out of time – and approval. Nevertheless, those tactics bought him best eleven months of any president in history. If he failed to use them wisely, that does not diminish usefulness of overall plan. But Dubya didn't invent tactics he used to such good advantage.

Dubya's daddy used them with enormous success in Gulf War. Do you remember all stories about Saddam's troops snatching babies from incubators and throwing them on hospital floors in Kuwait City? It seems now that they were completely fabricated. It simply never happened, but it gained an awful lot of popularity for a war that never had a thing to do with us! It also gained a lot of popularity for a president who looked America in eye, said, "Read my lips." – and lied.

Dubya learned well from his daddy. Adolf Hitler used similar manipulative tactics very successfully in years leading up to World War II. He demonized Jews, Gypsies – everyone who had committed hideous sin of being born other than "Aryan" – which handily distracted German citizens from horror of their economy at time, and then he invaded Poland and started some serious whupass. Despite determination of most of world to stop him, his own people worshipped him almost as a god right up until bitter end.

Subsequent to Pearl Harbor (and some believe prior to Pearl Harbor), Roosevelt used similar tactics with great success in early days of our entry into World War II. They continued to carry popular support right into last days of war, when Truman made decision to use bomb.

The earliest description of tactics such as these that I have personally read can be found in writings of Julius Caesar, but I am sure that even earlier soldiers and thinkers used them to control unruly masses and get an unpopular job done.

Why did these leaders resort to these tactics? They used them quite simply because they work. I should also mention that they also work especially well for leaders who are losing support – or who never had much support in first place.

Are you taking notes? Good. Because tactics of this type don't just apply to nations. They work for any identifiable group that is opposed to any other identifiable group.

Another quick review here. What are elements? (1) Failing popularity or support for your group, (2) find an enemy group, (3) demonize that enemy, and (4) kick some you-know-what. Result? Fantastic popularity, loyalty, support, ad nauseam.

This morning, I had misfortune to read an ad for August issue of Whistleblower magazine with some excerpts from theme – how Paganism is destroying America by fostering "New World Order." Normally, when I read material as ridiculously false as this, I just wonder about intelligence and/or education of author.

Today was different.

Right now, I am especially sensitive to use of manipulation of public opinion in this manner to gain power and money. So what might have gone unnoticed by me yesterday rose up and smacked me in face today.

I do not ascribe this sort of nonsense to sincere Christians. Sincere Christians are not insecure in their faith. They have no need to play games with manipulation.