For all of my Liberal readers who want to suddenly rebel against a Trump administration, when Obama has spent the past eight years weaponizing the government (because the EPA needs SWAT teams), when they suddenly realize that the government has lots of guns, and they don't have any.
I will say that all of the information and suggestions contained in the article are good and true. How the author delivers the information in a wonderfully biting and ironic commentary is well past epic. Here is an example:
Now it gets really complicated. And that’s entirely your fault. See, traditionally Democrats don’t like the 2nd Amendment and historically have done everything in their power to screw with it. Your gun laws are going to vary dramatically based upon where you live. It might be really difficult and expensive for you to exercise your 2nd Amendment rights, or it might be relatively easy.
But you’re scared rightnow! Well, that’s too bad. Because for the most part Democrats have tried to make it so that citizens have to abdicate their responsibilities and instead entrust that only state can defend everyone… That doesn’t seem like such a bright idea now that you don’t trust who is running the state, huh?
If you think you need to be armed, either against Trump's government or the local gangbangers, I actively encourage you to learn all you can, purchase what you believe is necessary to protect yourself and your family and use said weapons in a responsible and judicious manner.
I have been wondering what to say about Tuesday's election since Wednesday morning. Here on Saturday, I sat down to write this and it hit me.
Shame on you. ALL OF YOU. Both sides of the aisle you.
Because this is what you get when very few people read the Constitution, the very framework of our government. This is what happens when you don't know what it means, or why it was written the way it was, and more importantly the intent and purpose of the men who wrote it.
Democrats are bitching and moaning about "Hillary won the popular vote, SHE should be President!" I hate to break the bad news to you, but the United States is not one country. It is fifty individual countries bound together in common cause. Fifty different experiments in freedom. The States are not provincial territories, subservient to Washington, D.C. They are individual entities who each have their own way of doing things. The way they do things in California will probably not work in Iowa, and vice versa.
We are The United States of America. This country is the United States, which is on the American Continent. To call ourselves "Americans" is a misnomer, because Canadians, Mexicans, Guatemalans, Brazilians and all the others can lay claim to the term "American" as well. America (North, Central and South) reaches from the Arctic Circle all the way down to the Straits of Magellan. This is why I 99% of the time refer to this country as the United States, not America.
The Founding Fathers designed this country to have long periods of political discussion, culminating in an election. At that point, our Constitutional Representative Republic (we are not a democracy) would move forward on one course, until the political discussion started up again and another course change after the next election. The Legislative and Executive Branches are staggered in their terms to insure that it is impossible for there to be a radical change in leadership in one election. The President is elected every four years, the entire House is up every two years and Senators are elected for six year terms, which are staggered so only one-third of the Senators are up for election every two years.
So, shame on you Democrats, because with your riots you clearly demonstrate that you are basically little, petulant children. These riots are nothing more than a collective temper tantrum because you didn't get your way. You are directly responsible for Trumps election for the sole reason of your name calling of everyone who disagreed with you. Democrats have for decades collectively called anyone who disagrees with them misogynists, homophobes, sexists, racists and more. The people who have received these denigrating labels for years without justification for the sole intent to shame them into the Democrat camp finally had enough. So, they elected the person who is (to the Democrats) the penultimate misogynist, racist, sexist homophobe.
You think I'm alone in this view? Here you go. This is a six-minute profanity-laden tirade from Jonathan Pie who explains clearly what I just said. If you don't believe me, maybe he can get this point through to you.
Don't be snickering over there Republicans, because you're next.
You Republicans are acting so smug. You just elected "an outsider" who is going to "change everything." Let me pop that bubble right now. He won't radically change things because he can't. You sons-of-bitches need to read the Constitution as well. The "most powerful man in the world" has a whole lot less power than you think, and if you knew his duties under the Constitution, you would know that. The president's main duty is carrying out the laws of the country. Laws passed by Congress. Unlike President Obama who has done his best to enact his own agenda. "I have a phone and a pen" and all that.
But here you are, parading around that Trump won. You are no different than the Black lady who was put on TV Election Night in 2008. She was yelling, "AW, LAWDY, OBABA WON! WE GOTS US A BLACK MAN IN THE WHITE HOUSE! HE GONNA GIVE ME A FREE PHONE AND A CAR AND BETTER HOUSING!" Shut up and work with those who disagree with you, if they are willing to respectfully work with you.
And a last note, to all y'all (which is a proper plural noun in the South). The president does not control the price of gas, or how much you're paid in your job, or where you live or any of a hundred other things that are credited to (or blamed on) him. He can influence the conditions under which things might move a certain way, but his influence is one of many conditions which all contribute to the final result.
Please realize the actions of the President of the United States has very little to do with your day-to-day lives. When it comes to solving your problems and making your life better, look away from Washington and to yourself, your family and your friends. It is the choices you make that determines the overall course of your life. Not Obama, not Clinton, not Bush, not Trump.
Many of us have forgotten this and we all need to remind each other to meet everyone we encounter in our lives where and how they are, not where, who and how we want them to be.
As Bill and Ted said, "Be Excellent to each other!"
The Supreme Court recently released a decision that I agree with, yet vehemently oppose the basis of. Here it is, Voisine, et.al. v. United States.
This ruling basically upheld the Constitutionality of the 1996 Lautenberg Amendment to the Gun Control Act of 1968. These two men, Voisine and Armstrong, pled guilty to misdemeanor domestic violence charges and were caught possessing firearms some time later.
I actually support the court in their decision to uphold the law as it stands. The petitioners cries of “it wasn’t on purpose that I hit my partner” rings hollow because these men pled guilty to the original charges. If they wanted to bring up their lack of mens rea (the guilty mind, e.g. intent), the time and place for that was before the guilty plea.
However, the law which formed the basis upon which everything else is built is corrupted because it is a bad law.
A bit of history: In 1968, Congress passed the Gun Control Act of 1968. The initial idea for this was in response to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It never went anywhere until the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. This law created the Federal Firearms License, the banning of firearms sales through the mail and many other aspects of the reality for gun owners today. One of the major parts of this law was the permanent “chilling” of a citizens RKBA (Right to Keep and Bear Arms) under the Second Amendment if they are convicted of a felony. I have spoken on the subject of chilling rights before.
There are two basic kinds of crimes, misdemeanors and felonies. What separates these two is the level of punishment. A misdemeanor is punishable by confinement of no more than 11 months and 29 days (less than a year). A felony is punishable by confinement over a year. From 1968 until 1996, you lost your RKBA (Right to Keep and Bear Arms) under the Second Amendment only upon your conviction of a felony.
In 1996, The Lautenburg Amendment amended 18 U.S.C. 922 (that part of the United States Code that came from the GCA of 1968) to specifically include misdemeanor Domestic Violence convictions in the list of things that chill your RKBA. This amendment specifically added 18 U.S.C 922(g)(9). Out of the tens of thousands of misdemeanor offenses that you can be punished for, this one alone will cause you to lose your RKBA.
Simple assault is basically an unwelcome contact with another person. It can range from one person touching another person on the arm when they have told the first person not to touch them, all the way up to a semi-serious beating (no weapons used, no broken bones or other serious injuries). Simple assault becomes Domestic Violence when it is done against a family member or the family member of someone the assaulter is in a relationship with.
Example: Everyone meet Ray (Hi Ray!). Ray and his wife Becky have been in a feud with their neighbor Jill. One day, it all comes to a head and Ray went and beat the crap out of Jill. Becky, who saw the assault, started to freak out over the violence. Ray tries to hug her to calm her down and Becky said, “Get away from me!” Ray grabs her anyway and holds her until she calms down. By this time the police get there and Ray is arrested and charged with assault against Jill and domestic violence against Becky. Ray gets 6 months in the County jail for each conviction, however because one of the convictions was domestic violence was against Becky, he can no longer own or possess firearms, even though he beat Jill and didn’t hurt Becky. An extreme example? Kind of, but relevant and realistic nonetheless.
Just so you can be aware, here is the entire list of actions that will get your RKBA revoked, with the Lautenburg Amendment bolded:
18 U.S.C 922 (g) It shall be unlawful for any person—
(1) who has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year; (2) who is a fugitive from justice; (3) who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802)); (4) who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution; (5) who, being an alien— (A) is illegally or unlawfully in the United States; or (B) except as provided in subsection (y)(2), has been admitted to the United States under a nonimmigrant visa (as that term is defined in section 101(a)(26) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(26))); (6) who has been discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions; (7) who, having been a citizen of the United States, has renounced his citizenship; (8) who is subject to a court order that— (A) was issued after a hearing of which such person received actual notice, and at which such person had an opportunity to participate; (B) restrains such person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner of such person or child of such intimate partner or person, or engaging in other conduct that would place an intimate partner in reasonable fear of bodily injury to the partner or child; and (C)(i) includes a finding that such person represents a credible threat to the physical safety of such intimate partner or child; or (ii) by its terms explicitly prohibits the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against such intimate partner or child that would reasonably be expected to cause bodily injury; or (9) who has been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence,
to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.
Another thing that this amendment did was to violate the Constitution, specifically Article 1, Section 9, Article 3, “No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed.” The term “ex post facto” is Latin for “after the fact,” where a law is passed today that criminalizes an action committed before the law became effective and people are subsequently punished under that law.
As an example, say last year you chopped down your neighbors’ tree because it irritated you immensely (its leaves landed on your property, it blocked the afternoon sun on your porch, the neighbor refused to trim the tree, pick one or more). For some reason, at the time it was not against the law for you to do so (it was partially on your property, whatever). Your enraged neighbor then starts petitioning the government and gets a law passed last week criminalizing what you did. Today the County Sherriff knocks on your door and arrests you for violating that tree-chopping law. That is an example of ex post facto.
The document about the Lautenberg Amendment above says this about this “not violating the ex post facto law.”
[T]he court [Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit] explained that the Lautenberg Amendment, by prohibiting post-enactment possession, did not criminalize conduct that occurred prior to its effective date. As such, the court held that the Amendment was not retrospective and, therefore, not violative of the Ex Post Facto Clause. This explanation referred to Hiley v. Barrett.
This “reasoning” is utter bullshit for this simple reason: If someone committed a crime in 1976 (20 years before the law became effective) and completely paid their debt to society in 1977, yet when this law became effective in 1996 they lost their RKBA rights. Their reasoning this isn’t ex post facto? The Lautenberg Amendment does not punish you for your firearm possession between 1978 and 1995, only your possession after 1996. The loss of rights for a person today, for having committing an act before this law was passed, who paid the debt assigned upon conviction at that time is the very definition of ex post facto. “I did something bad years ago and I was punished for it. Today, I am penalized more for something where I have already paid my time.”
These two reasons are why 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(9) is a very bad law. This section needs to be abolished, or domestic violence needs to be elevated to a felony status. The ex post facto part of it needs to be revoked as well.
If you have been paying attention to the events going down in the Dakotas, this is the primary reason why the Second Amendment exists. This is why the RKBA (Right to Keep and Bear Arms) is an integral part of the American world view, our culture and our fundamental Rights bestowed upon us by our Creator. It is why the unarmed man is a Subject (as in Subject to the Crown) and the armed man is a Citizen.
Recently, Citizens have had three major clashes with the government. The first two protests, the Bundy Standoff in Nevada and the Oregon Standoff, where a government building was captured, were performed by well-armed Citizens who protested unwarranted government excesses. These armed Citizens stood up to the government. As a result of their being armed, they were treated with respect by government agents, no one was hurt and the government ultimately backed down. The Citizens involved in the Oregon event were arrested, charged, tried and acquitted of all charges brought against them by the government.
Currently, we have peaceful, unarmed protesters in the Dakotas trying to prevent an unwanted pipeline from passing through their lands and over sacred burial grounds. These unarmed citizens are being tear-gassed, shot at and the riot police push them around like children. There are reports of snipers picking off protesters and animals, with agent provocateurs trying to provide the reason for the government to move in on the protesters.
This is an unattributed quote, possibly from George Washington. However variants of this has shown up throughout history:
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force! Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.
A fire properly contained in the fireplace provides light, heat and the ability to cook. When a candle is lit from that fire, if not properly attended it can set the entire house on fire.
When the government is moral and has a conscience, peaceful protest can work. I have no problem with peaceful protests. This is why Gandhi was able to win Indian Independence from the British. If Gandhi had tried that against the Nazis when they occupied India, they would have simply shot him and any supporters in the head and that would have been the end of it.
The last eight years has shown a great increase in the excesses of governmental power. Agencies make up regulations with the force of law, which relentlessly encroach on freedoms. The speed and scale of encroachments with continue to accelerate when not opposed by armed Citizens.
Stand up. Arm yourselves. Be a Citizen, not a Subject.
Over the years I have developed a practice of not commenting immediately on things, but this is blowing up FB.
I don't watch TV, so I have only heard to references that Trump during the debate last night that he (if President) would order his Attorney General to investigate Hillary.
My question is, why is ordering the AG to fully investigate a person and to bring charges and prosecute when evidence of violations of the law are discovered bad, versus ordering the AG to not bring charges when clear evidence exists is acceptable?
The law that Hillary falls under concerning storing classified emails on an unsecured email server does not require intent. If you do it without knowing that the information is classified, guess what? You're still guilty because laws like this does not require mens rea (the evil mind, legalese for intent). There have been multiple instances of military members convicted and serving prison time for inadvertently releasing even small amounts of low-level classified information.
I guess the rules are different when you're running to run things.
There is a mental disorder called Borderline Personality Disorder. It is best characterized by the phrase "I hate you don't leave me!" There is no comma in that phrase as common English grammatical rules would call for because there is no pause when someone with BPD says it.
Other characterizations include very black/white thinking. You either intensely love and or adore someone/thing, or you just as intently hate or despise the same person/thing. There is no in-between and vacillating from one side to the other can be rapid and random.
No person is 100% angelic or demonic. The most famous people in history, either beloved or reviled had done both wonderful and horrendous things in their life.
I bring this up because I see this in many people concerning the current Presidential horse race. They revere without reservation one candidate and revile with equal emotion the other candidate.
As Dave Ramsey says, "Pull your head out of your politics." Both of the major candidates have serious issues. Don't vote for a person because of what party they ascribe to, nor their personal plumbing. I suggest your take Mrs. Corsale's advice.
Mrs. Corsale was my Geometry and Trigonometry teacher in High School. When she was in college, she had three suitors after her hand in marriage. Being the extremely analytical math nerd she was, she used math to decide which suitor to pick. She wrote a list of every quality she wanted in a husband. She then wrote a list of every quality she didn't want in a husband. She gave each suitor a point for every quality they had on the first list, then deducted a point for every quality they had on the second list. She married the guy with the highest total.
We are going to be stuck with either Trump or Kane for the next few years. If what I have been reading about Hillary's condition is true or pretty close, if she gets elected she won't survive her first year in office. While what she has in and of itself is not fatal, it will probably kill her through complications, one of her "falls" or she will deteriorate to the point she won't be able to perform her duties.
All I ask is you look at their accomplishments. If you don't like either, consider the Libertarian or Green Party. Think for yourself and don't let soundbites from either side make up your mind for you.
This particular article has been running around in my head for a while. It wasn’t until recently that I found the video clip below that I felt I needed to drive home the point I want to make.
Just to be clear, when I talk about “Global Climate Change” (as in Capitalized) I mean the “Man-made climate disaster” kind of thing.
To start off, I would be a fool if I did not believe in the fact that the Earth’s climate is changing. The climate as a whole is changing every day, like a shoreline. The climate ebbs and flows, just like the ocean tide coming in and going out twice each day. It does, trust me. I’m a sailor and have navigated boats and ships upon the ocean.
I would also be a fool if I believed that mankind alone is the sole or major player in that climate change. A change of a few degrees of temperature on the Sun, or the eruption of a volcano has at least the same and probably more impact on the global climate as all of us put together.
I admit that Mankind burning all of these fossil fuels does have some impact. How much, I don’t know. All of these climate scientists can’t agree themselves and they have a lot better access to the data than I do.
I have been watching this debate since I was a teenager in the 70’s, I have discovered that published data supporting Global Climate Change to be very suspect. Over the years, I have seen reports about a single weather station and its data “proving” climate change. The bad news is that several years of the data in question was “reported” by that station before it was even built. I have seen other reports that satellite data has been “massaged” to support the “climate change” theory.
You see, I remember when these Global Climate Change scientists were yelling about Global Cooling in the 70’s. Their “solution” was to spread carbon dust over the poles to absorb more heat from the Sun. In the 90’s, Al Gore started to raise the alarm about Global Warming. Imagine how much worse that Global Warming would have been if we actually had covered the poles with carbon dust in the 70’s. Because these crackpot scientists really can’t make up their minds on if the Earth is warming or cooling (it’s actually doing both, at the same time), they did agree on finally calling it Global Climate Change because then it means whatever they want it to mean.
The weatherman on our local daily newscast uses the best climatological models and software money can buy, yet they have great difficulty predicting with any accuracy what the weather will be for a specific city more than three days in the future. I really have to ask, if these professionals can’t have more than a 30% accuracy for a specific location more than 72 hours into the future, how can other professionals be able to predict with any certainty what the climate will be like in fifty to one hundred years? I can assure you if the sunspot activity on the Sun drops or jumps dramatically, or there’s an unanticipated volcano eruption that these Global Climate Change scientists didn’t predict, all their models go right out the window.
I personally believe we are like fleas jumping up and down on the back of an elephant. We think we are affecting things but really we are not.
To those people who believe that we should either drastically cut back or stop entirely our use of fossil fuels, I want to give you a Magic Button that will instantly stop all production and use of all fossil fuels. I am not going to use half-way measures like the Kyoto Protocol because that will not stop the damage, only prolong it.
The following clip is from the 1952 movie Above and Beyond. The man in question is Lieutenant Colonel Paul Tibbets, the man who piloted the B-29 Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb Little Boy on Hiroshima Japan. I have edited this clip, which is why it jumps.
Lt. Col Tibbets pressed that button on the incomplete knowledge that he could stop WWII the next day by pressing that button, killing over 100,000 people in the process. He didn’t know how it would be done, only that it became a very real possibility if he pressed that button.
I now offer you that button, giving you the knowledge that if you press it, the current ecosystem will most likely survive as is and could recover. There will also be large-scale human deaths involved. If you don’t press it, things will go on the way it’s going right now.
Now if you don’t press the button, I would have nothing further to describe, so for the sake of argument, let’s say you do press the button and stop all production and use of fossil fuels. To start off with, cities of any size are for lack of a better term black holes. Every city has to pull in everything it needs every day from the surrounding area at a minimum and the world as a whole because it cannot provide basic necessities for human life without outside resources.
So when we press that Magic Button, the first thing we notice is the lights will go out. That means no light at night beyond candles, no heat when it’s cold beyond burning wood in your fireplace and certainly no air conditioning when it’s hot. Yes there is nuclear, solar and hydroelectric power generation methods, but in the United States they are a small fraction of the total power output and thus not worthy to mention.
No power also means no computers, no Internet, no Television. Oh, sure, some things that are battery powered will go on for a day or so, unless you have a solar recharger to keep it charged. And really what good will that laptop, cell phone or tablet do for you for you if there is no cellular network and no Internet?
The second thing you will notice is deliveries have stopped. That means no more Amazon packages delivered daily by UPS, FedEx or DHL. No more mailman. No more trucks delivering food and the thousand other sundry items you use every day without noticing into your city or town. Once your pantry is empty, what are you going to do? All your money is in the bank, tied to your debit card. Since the cash registers and ATM’s don’t have power, you can’t buy food.
By the way, the government is not coming to help you. Instead of being exempted from burning fossil fuels, your Magic Button affected them as well. There is no cavalry coming over the hill in the nick of time to save you.
You, and millions of others who are used to the city life now face two choices. You can either starve to death in place, become bandits killing others for their supplies, or you can migrate on foot out to the rural areas where you will likely die on the way by the hands of bandits or others fleeing as well. If you’re lucky you might make it to a farm to become serfs of the farmer. You work and tend his crops for a share of the food. You better hope if you’re female the landowner does not know what droit de seigneur means.
If you live in an area without farms nearby, you might survive off the land long-term, but the odds are against you because there are thousands trying to do the same thing.
By pressing that button, you have realistically killed over 200 million people in the United States alone. World-wide, most of the people in cities and developed countries will die.
Out of the 7.2 billion people living on Earth right now, you would kill at least 3-5 billion people, condemning them to death from food riots or starvation, all because you want to “stop Global Warming.” You would knock us back to a pre-Industrial Revolution way of life.
Congratulations! You have outdone many times over the total efforts of Stalin, Mao, Hitler and Pol Pot put together. You should be proud of yourself. You name will be remembered for the rest of Mankind. I do not know if your name will be remembered with praise or as a curse.
I started writing this post at the beginning of the month. Due to blog issues it was lost twice. One last try, because this is important.
The start of July 2016 saw the deaths of two Black men which were partially caught on video. One was a career criminal, who was killed by police while resisting arrest. One was a positive influence in his church and community, who died due to a tragic miscommunication between himself and the officer. I grieve for these dead men, the officers involved and all of their families and communities.
While I do not fault the Black community for being outraged over these two deaths, I have to ask this: every week, forty-eight Black people are killed across this country in Black-on-Black violence with nary a peep from social media, nor the national-level media. Even the local media covers it like "Yeah, another 3 Black people were killed and 12 wounded in weekend violence. Stay tuned, we'll report this again next week." I then see the local Black leaders hold prayer vigils and call for the end of violence.
And not a damn thing happens, except more young Black people are killed. If you want to solve a problem (i.e., the scores of Black deaths), I suggest you break down the problem and then with all of your effort go after the biggest issue.
The federal government cannot solve this issue. Nor can the state government, nor county/city government. They can be part of the solution, however the People must take action if this is truly to be solved.
This is what I see:
A Black culture that glorifies violence in its many forms.
A Black culture that punishes advancing in life.
A broken prison and parole system.
A community who fails its citizens.
A surplus of idle hands.
I refuse to paint this issue with a broad brush. This is not "all Blacks" or any other nonsense. This is a very specific segment of the Black population. To change how society handles them is a task that falls on all of us. To changes themselves, that must come from within them.
I want to start out saying the majority of Black families (single-parent and nuclear) want and push their children to learn, gain knowledge and succeed in life. These parents are to be commended for their actions.
When I hear Blacks roll by me in their cars, blaring Rap music I get sad. Most of the Rap music I hear uses all kinds of derogatory and dehumanizing terms towards women, as well as advocating violence and illegal activity. I understand this music is a reflection of their daily lives. That does not preclude those same Rap artists from focusing on the positive aspects of the lives of those people. When it comes to advancing in life, there is a portion of the Black population that punishes other Blacks for wanting to succeed. If a Black schoolchild is studying to be a professional (either white-collar or skilled), they are punished by their peer group for "wanting to be White." The result, an untrained young Black person lacking the foundation of knowledge to operate effectively in this society and is unhireable for anything more than grunt work at minimum wage. The males are forced into illicit activities to provide income, thus dying early in gang violence or spending most of their lives in prison. The women survive by popping out babies to get on Welfare.
Make no mistake about it, what I have just described is a small percentage of the Black community. That being said, it is this sliver of the population where most of the violence and lawlessness comes from.
The ideas I am about to describe to you will not be easy. Nothing worth having ever comes easy. It will not be a fast solution. This is a "crock pot" solution versus a "microwave" solution. If the proper effort is consistently applied, it will take at least 20 years before meaningful change happens.
The prison system has to change. The current prison system is not designed to rehabilitate. It is designed to crush the mind, spirit and body of the prisoner. Yes, there are isolated programs to teach felons trades, but they are just that, isolated. A trade school program to certify these men and women in lucrative, marketable skills is essential, both in High School (so they don't get into the justice system in the first place) and prison (so they have skills to keep them out of prison).
The parole system has to change. Right now a felony conviction ruins a person for the rest of their lives. It cuts off most of their opportunities and relegates them to the low-paying, unskilled labor which almost guarantees their re-entry into the justice system. There needs to be a universal incentive for businesses to hire first-time felons who acquired those marketable skills and put them to work.
Society has to "disavow" its criminals. Up until the Civil War, miscreants (defined as depraved or villainous) who caused too much trouble in a town or village were "ridden out of town on a rail." Let me show you want that meant.
This is a fence rail. notice how the top rail is actually pretty much square in its cross-section.
Because our colonial ancestors didn't have the time or equipment to make their fence rails fancy, the old-fashioned and simplest way was to quarter a log, like this:
So when someone was "ridden out of town on a rail," the townspeople stripped the miscreant naked, then carried him to the edge of town on said fence rail, lifted upon the shoulders of two men. The rail was positioned with the point upwards (as shown) and the miscreant straddled the rail. I think the terms "extremely painful" and "wood splinters in the genitals and crotch" would be accurate regarding said ride. Tarring and feathering (coating the miscreant with liquid tar then covering him with feathers) usually accompanied the "traveling by rail," either before or after. Below is an image from the book Huckleberry Finn describing such an incident. Notice the miscreant has already been tarred and feathered.
The whole purpose of this exercise was to "encourage" the miscreant to either conform to the socially acceptable behavior of the town or move on down the road to the next town.
Today, we lack the necessary plethora of strong men and fence rails. That being said, the mother of a criminal who performed a drive-by should not be on TV saying, "He's a good boy!" Your "good boy" shot 20+ bullets into a house full of people because he didn't like one of them, killing three including a toddler. This criminal, violent sub-section of our society needs to be forcefully ejected from town and be told in no certain terms, "Don't come back." Everyone in the neighborhood knows where the drug houses are and who the gang-bangers are. I also know the gang-bangers are well-armed and have zero compunction against shooting you in the head, then sitting on your still-warm body and eating lunch. The gang-bangers will be run out of town when the people in those neighborhoods throw them out despite their fears.
I am not advocating violence except as a last resort. If you can run the gang-bangers out of town without anyone getting hurt, I'm all for it. Absent that outcome, the most extreme option might be for our neighborhoods to gather together at 2 am to throw Molotov cocktails into the windows of every drug house and shoot everybody who escapes the flames. Gang-bangers are a cancer in our cities and towns. Surgery to remove the cancer must be performed, amputation if necessary. I understand the actions and consequences of these actions and I do not say this lightly.
Once the criminals are flushed, then businesses can come into the depressed neighborhoods and start offering jobs. The jobs can be right there or shuttle service could be offered. I don't know how exactly it would play out. When the Black population from these poorer neighborhoods divest themselves from the criminal element, acquire a positive and drug-free attitude, the jobs are there. I know of one factory in my city that is short-handed, simply because many of the job applicants can't pass a drug screening.
Learning must be equated with prosperity. Once these prior changes are well into effect, then the Black culture needs to start associating learning, knowledge and skills with success and affluence rather than just sports ability or how well they can write and perform Rap music.
I for one want everybody to succeed without regard to their skin color, sex, ethnic heritage, socioeconomic background or anything else. Everybody has a different vision of success. While some want to strike it rich, become a CEO and make a Billion dollars a year, others may want to meet their monthly expenses, save for retirement and spend every evening at home with their family. I'm all for you deciding what you want.
I am actually going to quote the last paragraph first, because what it says is very important:
The reality is that we don’t know exactly why men are exponentially more prone to violence. If we are going to reduce mass shootings, officer-involved killings and the culture of violence in America, however, we need to talk about it.
I bring this up right away because this paragraph is full of fallacies. I will break it down to show you:
The reality is that we don’t know exactly why men are exponentially more prone to violence. Yes, we are pretty sure and the author hits the nail on the head earlier in the article:
Some evolutionary psychologists say that more aggressive men have historically been able to procure more women, food and land.
I have said this before, the preservation and expansion of one’s genetic heritage is our base biological reason for existing. Men do this by wanting to impregnate as many women as possible, thus ensuring their genetic heritage by quantity. Women preserve their genetic heritage by trading unrestricted sexual access to one male in return for the protection by that male of themselves and their children, thus preserving their genetic heritage through quality of breeding and increasing the chance of the individual child to survive to adulthood.
If we are going to reduce mass shootings, officer-involved killings and the culture of violence in America… This is not an American problem, it’s a world-wide issue. You want to talk about a “culture of violence”? Shall we talk about Honor Killings? You may also not realize this, chattel slavery is happening right this second. Over six million people are currently chattel (permanent property, as opposed to Indentured for a number of years) slaves across the globe. Don’t whine about ancient history (antebellum slavery in the United States) when it is current events.
When we talk about “officer-involved” killings, the causes are extremely varied. From the “You’ll never take me alive copper!” kind of criminal to the resisting arrest that escalates to deadly force, to the miscommunication between the police and citizen that leads to the death of the citizen. When a police officer invokes violence or death upon a citizen, it should be investigated and upon conviction in a court of law, harshly punished.
… [W]e need to talk about it. The issues and societal causes that lead to these outcomes are varied, complex and should be talked about.
You better buckle your seatbelts, because that’s pretty much the end of my agreement with Ms. Melissa Warnke, the author of this article.
Let me quote the first paragraph of Ms. Warnke’s article:
On Thursday morning, a fire alarm in the Los Angeles Times’ building went off. Fortunately, the dozens of office alarms I’ve heard over the years have always been drills or misfiring systems. For the first time, instead of begrudgingly grabbing my belongings and traipsing downstairs, I was afraid. For the first time, the thought in my mind wasn’t “drill” but “shooter.”
I am currently analyzing all of the data from the Mass Shooting Tracker website and I have all of their data on “mass shootings” from 2013 until a few days ago. I am currently going through the news articles related to over 1,200 incidents from 1/1/2013 on to “drill down” and get more information beyond the date, city and the numbers of dead and wounded.
I will say that out of those 1,267 incidents, 231 meet the current FBI definition of “Mass Shooting” (3 or more dead). This was over a period of 1,287 days, which works out to be about one every 5.5 days. Out of a population of 300+ million Americans, this means the chances of someone being involved in an “active shooter situation” is extremely remote. Armed with this knowledge, I believe an instant association between the fire alarm and “active shooter” borders on the irrational.
Could it have meant “active shooter?” Yes, because anything is possible. Was it likely? To tell you the truth, an "active shooter" situation in the LA Times building is more likely than that building getting hit by a meteor, which is very, very remote. Should you prepare yourself mentally and physically for such an event? Yes, because being prepared that way will also be of benefit to you in many other situations as well. If you are able to carry a weapon in your state/city, should you? That is something you have to decide, I won’t tell you that you should or shouldn’t. I do believe you should, however, have that option available to you.
Ms. Walke then goes on to mention in passing an article by author Ta-Nehisi Coates titled “the enduring myth of black criminality.” I assure you, I found this intriguing and worthy of much analysis and comment to come later.
The main thrust of Ms. Walke’s article then states:
What we don’t talk about is how the greatest predictor of violence isn’t religion, occupation or race. It’s gender.
In the United States, 98% of those who commit mass shootings are male; 98% of the officers who have shot and killed civilians are male; 90% of those who commit homicide by any means are male; and 80% of those arrested for all violent crimes — murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault — are male.
She then talks about how few times women kill. I will agree with her points here somewhat. Women by and large kill only out of that biological imperative to preserve their offspring. Because they are less strong as men, they use guile and cunning (or superior firepower) to bring their victims to their deaths.
I can only conclude from the main point of the article that “men are the source of all of the violence in the world.” I get the impression that in her perfect world, we must eliminate all testosterone from all men (that evil, aggressive hormone), or failing that, just eliminate men entirely.
This idealized view of men and women belies and denies the base nature of each sex. To ask men not to be aggressive and violent is like asking a hunk of granite rock to not be solid, hard or heavy.
Men for the most part are aggressive and violent only when necessary. Women for the most part are nurturing and communicative. These aspects in isolation do not advance or enhance our progress and society. When these aspects are combined, when we work together, the synergistic effects are fantastic.
I think Ms. Walke and I can agree that unchanneled aggression is where the major problem lies. An elimination of those societal aspects that leaves men idle would be instrumental in the significant decrease of that unwanted aggression.
These people insist that citizens not have the right to defend themselves, yet think it's perfectly acceptable to have armed security to protect them.
And just so all y'all know how the Australians regard personal security, I present this section of an ad from their buy back program after the Port Arthur Massacre in 1996:
"Under the latest gun laws, personal and property protection are not longer considered acceptable reasons to possess any type of firearm..."
So, in Australia and Great Britain, you do not have the right or legal ability to defend yourself against any kind of aggressor. I don't think that concept will fly too well in the United States.
Warning: if you are easily upset from aggressive words and actions, run away, take refuge in your safe space and don't read this post.
Seriously, if seeing someone get shot or wounded upsets you, your time is better spent elsewhere.
In the wake of the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, I present to you two videos, where lay (untrained) people (an activist and two reporters) go through what are known as "shoot/no-shoot" scenarios. When I had my CCW, I got the opportunity to train with systems like this. It is bone-chilling scary how quickly things can and will go south.
First video, a civil-rights activist and the reporter covering the story go through scenarios with people:
Second video, a reporter uses a system similar to what I used:
These videos should give you a better appreciation on what kind of situations police officers face every day. On how they have fractions of a second to decide who lives and who dies. Hesitation will kill the officer every time. The officer doesn't have the luxury to yell "DO OVER!" and try different methods. Once the perpetrator decides to take aggressive action, it's all instinct and reflexes.
And for those of you who didn't think the guy with a grilling skewer was a threat, the below picture is the kind of things that happen in a knife fight:
In this past week, two men were killed by police on video. Yesterday, a sniper killed five Dallas police officers.
This shit has to stop.
I am going to give some initial commentary on the two men who were killed by police. First, however, I am going to tell you things you may or may not know in your brain, you need to know these things in your heart. I have spoken multiple times about the function of the police, this time I am speaking about the person behind the badge.
A police officer is a human being. This means they are imperfect and can make mistakes. They have the same day-to-day stresses and problems that you and I have.
This officer wants to serve his community. You don't go through a police academy and then strap on body armor as part of your work clothes on a whim.
They want to go home at the end of their shift. This means that they will do whatever to protect themselves as best they can.
Officers are trained to establish control in every encounter. If the officer loses control of a situation, there is a good chance they will be killed. They do this to protect themselves and others. The police also cannot lose a fight, ever. If an officer loses a fight, other officers may pay the price.
With every encounter, the officer takes his life in his hands. a 90 year-old white lady can pull a gun just as fast and render that officer just as dead as a 16 year-old black male. The officer doesn't know if you and your family are out for a drive with your family, or if you and your girlfriend just knocked over a liquor store with the baby sleeping in the car.
When it all goes south, when the fists and bullets start flying, the officer will take it from both sides. From the criminal who wants to kill him, and his political superiors who have the luxury to parse every millisecond of the encounter from their easy chairs. The criminal can only take the officers life. The politician can take his livelihood, his character and his dignity.
Take these to heart.
In both of these cases, not all the facts are out yet. I am commenting on what I do know and what I can infer from what has been presented.
The first man to die, Alton Sterling, was well known to the Baton Rouge PD. Although the officers who responded to the call didn't know Alton, he (Alton) knew he had an 18+ year record and he was wanted for failure to register as a sex offender. People in that kind of position do not welcome any kind of police encounter and will do anything to get out of that situation. This led to a scuffle, then a fight. When you start to be aggressive with the police, there will be an immediate escalation on their part.
It is currently unknown why the officer drew his weapon and shot the man. I'm sure something will come out about what happened.
For the other man, Philando Castile, this man is a polar opposite from Alton Sterling. It sounds like Philando was a fine young man, an upstanding member of his community. It seems his mistake was too much enthusiasm. It seems Philando initially did the right thing, which was to inform the officer up front that he had a weapon. The evidence is currently unclear, but having legally carried a weapon in the past, I am conjecturing that Philando reached for his wallet quickly and/or without the officer telling him to do so. When a person who has a weapon rapidly and without direct orders moves their dominant hand to their hip, it can be for a wallet or a weapon. The officer can only think it can be for a weapon, else the officer will be dead. I can move my hand from the steering wheel, grab the weapon on my hip, clear the holster, bring it to bear on the officer and fire in less than 0.75 seconds. Say this out loud, "one one-thou-" because that's all you're going to get out before I put a bullet in you. At arms length, the officer can only react and that will likely be too late.
In response to these tragic events, a lone gunman decided to shoot multiple people, killing 5 Dallas police officers. Officers who were providing security for a Black Lives Matter rally. You know, where they shout about wanting dead police officers.
I am sad. Sad for both Alton and Philando as well as the wounded and killed in Dalas.
Over the past few years, information has leaked daily about Hillary Rodham Clinton's email escapades. Let's put this into perspective.
While Secretary of State, Clinton had a private email server in her home. She had zero security on it, making the Internet equivalent of a public message board at your local supermarket as far as anyone could read any messages on it. Because Her Eminence did not want to be bothered with all of the security requirements of her position, she ordered her staff to transcribe highly classified information off a government network that has no connection to the Internet at all and send that highly classified information over an unsecured connection on the Internet to a unsecured server so she could read it.
The information that passed through this unencrypted email server was sensitive beyond belief. Let's just say for a moment that we got into a conflict with Russia or China. The Secretary of State would be a major player in resolving the crisis, so she would have had military and political information (both sides) available to her. Things like what forces were available to both sides, what our objectives were in resolving the crisis and how far we were willing to go in the crisis to reach those objectives. If the bad guys had this information also, don't you think this would give the enemy a great advantage to resolve the issue to their benefit and not ours?
If you don't think that the enemies of the United States weren't reading her emails as fast as she did, I have a bridge in Memphis I want to sell you. Cheap. There is no way professional State-sponsored hackers could miss the existence of this email server and then gain access to it in seconds. Mind you, the last I heard was 110 emails were classified so highly they couldn't even release redacted versions.
Then on June 20th, Bill Clinton met with the Attorney General Loretta Lynch as the two were "passing each other" on the tarmac at the Phoenix airport. Bill was waiting and after she landed, Bill got aboard her aircraft and they had a 30 minute private conversation "just catching up, talking about grandchildren and things like that." There is no way this meeting was by chance. If you believe that, I have another bridge next to the first one I can sell you. Package discount. Considering the importance of AG Lynch, her schedule outside of the Beltway is tightly controlled and regulated. For security reasons, they have to limit her "exposed" time (not in a secured and controlled area) to a minimum. That 30 minutes had to be figured into her schedule.
And today, two weeks after that meeting the FBI releases a statement that they do not recommend any charges against Hillary. Of course AG Lynch will "follow the recommendations of the FBI" and not file any charges against our next presumptive President.
The evidence in the public domain alone against Hillary is the equivalent of her on video executing a citizen just because the citizen dared speak to Her Eminence without permission. Her guilt is unquestionable. A first year law student could successfully prosecute the case. Yet, FBI Director James Comey stated:
"Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is information that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information."
I'm sorry, intent is not the issue. The actions are the relevant issue here. Like a punk street racer, who didn't intend to lose control of his car while racing which caused him to run over and kill an entire Girl Scout Troop, his actions made it clear he did and that punk should face at least manslaughter charges. Likewise, Hillary may not have intended to divulge the deepest secrets of the United States, however her careless actions let that happen. These actions have put every man and women in uniform at a grave unnecessary risk, and compromised the general security of every Citizen of the United States. She needs to be judged by Citizens of this country (because, you, know, no one else is her peer) and tried for her actions.
Not a lot of people have noticed this on a conscious level, but there is a movement afoot for something nefarious. There are long-view plans underway, and many are just falling in line without questioning.
We celebrate holidays like New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Veterans Day and Thanksgiving.
And then we have this weekend, The 4th of July. What ever happened to calling it Independence Day?
Someone, somewhere is trying to divest us of this notion of being independent. Because if we think of this holiday as just "The 4th of July," why not make it "The 24th of July?" I have no emotional attachment to the phrase "The 4th of July" but I (and I am sure many of you as well) attach great meaning and significance to the words "Independence Day."
Never before in history had a group of people successfully broken away from the government that had control over them, especially the most powerful country in existence. Never before had a government been formed by the People with the concept that the People told the government what to do, instead of the other way around. A concept that the powers of the government were limited to specific and declared areas and the government was in no way to infringe upon the freedom of the People.
Someone wants us to forget those concepts. Someone wants us to forget our legacy and not think about how our natural condition as citizens of the United States we are not to be unduly encumbered by our government as we perform our daily lives.
Think about that the next time you say "Happy 4th of July."
On 7/1/2016, a new law takes effect in Tennessee. One that will make businesses liable for their anti-gun policies. Tennessee Senate bill 1736.
Starting 7/1/16, if a CCW license holder enters a place of business (or while in their parking lot traveling to/from said business) that by their own policy (meaning the business is not required by law to ban firearms, such as schools/Government buildings, etc.) bans firearms and is robbed/wounded/killed by a criminal, the CCW holder has the right to sue the f'in crap out of that place of business.
What this means is that if a business that doesn't have to restrict a citizens ability to defend themselves, that business will be held civilly liable for any injury incurred by another unlawful act sustained by the CCW holder or those with them.
I doubt this will not cause any "NO WEAPONS" signs to come down until after the first couple of multi-million dollar lawsuits.
I have long held the belief the the powers of the police should be as limited and narrow as possible. Remember, they are the agents charged with the enforcement of the laws of the State. That whole "To protect and serve" is all marketing. The citizens receive positive benefits from the actions of the police, make no mistake about it. When you call 911 and the police come and deal with Bad People who are causing riots, stealing from people or killing them, the police are there to contain and arrest the Bad People and that's it. You get the benefit of the Bad People no longer being there and hurting others.
I also believe that the laws should be as few and simple as possible. Our Founding Fathers said that the laws should be able to be read and understood "when running." With the reams and reams of laws passed by Congress, then thanks to the Administrative Procedure Act there are reams and reams more of regulations with the force of law issued by the myriad Federal Agencies. On average, a regular citizen commits three felonies every day just going through their normal daily activities. So a drastic limitation of the lawful use of police investigatory powers should be held to strict standards and rules.
So when I see this 5-3 decision come out of SCOTUS, I see the power of the State advancing quickly over the People. Here it is, Utah v. Strieff.
The boiled down facts are that the police suspected that drug activity was being conducted at a house. While the house was under surveillance, the police saw the defendant leave the house, then followed and without cause stopped the suspect. After obtaining the defendant's license and registration, a normal search of police records showed that the defendant had a warrant out for his arrest. The Defendant was then arrested and searched, which turned up a small amount of narcotics on his person.
The defendant claimed that the officer had to cause to stop him and demand identification. SCOTUS saw this as "the arrest came from the name search that turned up the arrest warrant."
Here are my issues with this:
The police stopped him without "probable cause," which means that the officer would have to clearly articulate what law the defendant had broken and what the officer witnessed to indicate that the law had been broken in order to initiate the encounter. A good example might be, "I saw the defendant approaching the intersection of Kirby St. and Shelby Ave. traveling along Kirby St. in a westerly direction. Upon reaching the intersection, the defendant turned right onto Northbound Shelby Ave without coming to a complete stop at the stop sign and failing to activate his turn signal to indicate his intentions. The actions witnessed violates laws 24-373 and 26-222 of the traffic code of this municipality." The police officer failed to meet this standard.
When the police had the house in question under surveillance, they noticed that "making brief visits to the house over the course of a week." To those with a modicum of common sense and reasoning ability, this could only show that most likely some good or service was being exchanged. What that good or service was, the police at that time had no idea. The owner of the house could have been selling Tupperware, candy, stock market tips, or drugs. Experience tells them that it was most likely drugs, because in past cases, 98%+ of the time, when observing this kind of behavior in this setting, it turned out to be transactions for illegal drugs.
If you have ever heard of a "chain of custody," this refers to the chain of people who had access to or handled evidence that was suspected to be used in a crime. For example, a CSI officer picks up a weapon found at a crime scene. He documents the weapon by whatever physical characteristics they can observe at that time. It's bagged and transported it to the Evidence Room. The ballistics expert checks out the weapon to test fire the weapon and obtain a slug for testing. It is then returned to the Evidence Room. Checked out by a court deputy to be taken to the courtroom to be used in the trial, if that deputy sees that the weapon in the bag does not match what is described on the bag, it means that 1) the chain of custody has been "broken," 2) this evidence can no longer be used because this was not the weapon recovered at the scene, and 3) one of the people who signed for that item is in big trouble.
Police are supposed to be held to the same "chain of custody" standards in their actions. An arrest is the end to a series of actions and statements made during a police encounter. If the officer cannot clearly articulate a legal reason why the officer initiated the encounter, it means the chain has been broken and everything discovered after the break cannot be used.
While not unknown, the three Justices who dissented with the majority issued two dissenting opinions.
The first, (on page 14 of the document linked to) is by Justice Sotomayor, with Justice Ginsburg agreeing on three of the four points in the report.
“By legitimizing the conduct that produces this double consciousness, this case tells everyone, white and black, guilty and innocent, that an officer can verify your legal status at any time. It says that your body is subject to invasion while courts excuse the violation of your rights. It implies that you are not a citizen of a democracy but the subject of a carceral state, just waiting to be cataloged.
“We must not pretend that the countless people who are routinely targeted by police are “isolated.” They are the canaries in the coal mine whose deaths, civil and literal, warn us that no one can breathe in this atmosphere. They are the ones who recognize that unlawful police stops corrode all our civil liberties and threaten all our lives. Until their voices matter too, our justice system will continue to be anything but.”
The second, (on page 26) is by Justice Kagan and Justice Ginsburg. The money quote is from this part is:
“[C]reates unfortunate incentives for the police— indeed, practically invites them to do what Fackrell did here. Consider an officer who, like Fackrell, wishes to stop someone for investigative reasons, but does not have what a court would view as reasonable suspicion. If the officer believes that any evidence he discovers will be inadmissible, he is likely to think the unlawful stop not worth making—precisely the deterrence the exclusionary rule is meant to achieve. But when he is told of today’s decision? Now the officer knows that the stop may well yield admissible evidence: So long as the target is one of the many millions of people in this country with an outstanding arrest warrant, anything the officer finds in a search is fair game for use in a criminal prosecution. The officer’s incentive to violate the Constitution thus increases: From here on, he sees potential advantage in stopping individuals without reasonable suspicion—exactly the temptation the exclusionary rule is supposed to remove. Because the majority thus places Fourth Amendment protections at risk, I respectfully dissent.”
If you let the police stop people without cause and question them, you have arrived at the Police State.
If you end up on the receiving end of one of these "encounters," know the applicable laws. In my state, you do not have to show your identification except during a traffic stop. You also keep your pie hole shut under all circumstances. Do not speak, shrug your shoulders, wave your hands or any other obvious non-verbal communication.
In the below video, Congressman Gowdy (R-SC), grills Kelli Ann Burriesci the Deputy Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security about "chilled" rights.
A chilled right is a right normally afforded the citizen that has been revoked. A good example is the right to vote. If you are convicted of a felony, the right to vote has been chilled after due process. The due process is you have to charged with a serious crime, the government then has to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt to a jury of your peers that you are the responsible party.
The term "terrorist watch list" which has been bandied about since the Orlando shooting is one of those "sound good" ideas that aren't "good, sound" ideas for the very reason there is no due process involved. It has a lot in common with the "no-fly" list.
There is no substantive process for a citizen to be added to the list. In the case of the "no-fly" list, all it can sometimes take is a name that is spelled somewhat like the name or pseudonym of a known bad guy. You haven't done anything, yet a computer algorithm who sees you as a frequent flyer and has a name similar to a known terrorist operative's name and *poof* your right to travel as you wish using an airline is now chilled. And a lot of people didn't know it until they bought a ticket, showed up at the airport and tried to board the aircraft.
Now Liberals are screaming about how the Orlando shooter "WAS ON THE TERRORIST WATCH LIST AND WAS ALLOWED TO BUY A$$AULT WEAPONZ!!!!" Yeah, well despite being investigated by the FBI twice he managed to pass several background checks and land a job at a company handling security for the the federal government. That says a lot about the coordination and competence of the feds no matter how you look at it.
Back to the due process. Because someone didn't like you, what you wrote or said, and they call up the FBI and say "I think he's a terrorist. He's been talking a lot of subversive stuff" and the FBI puts you on the terrorism watch list. Many of your rights are now chilled and you haven't committed a crime, nor have you been convicted of a crime.
What in the hell every happened to that right of "innocent until proven guilty?"
Then we have this to exemplify my point:
At just after the 2:00 mark, you get this exchange:
DICKERSON: So if you have been under investigation over some period of time, you would trigger --
FEINSTEIN: That's correct.
DICKERSON: And what's the time period there for --
FEINSTEIN: There is no time period, but --
DICKERSON: So ever -- if you've ever been looked at by the FBI?
FEINSTEIN: That's correct.
DICKERSON: Well, so then what about the fact that somebody could be looked at they -- you know, maybe the FBI got it wrong. So now they never can buy a firearm?
FEINSTEIN: Well, that doesn't mean that it would be -- they would be subject to being pinged. They would look at it.
Of course, we all know that the deductive reasoning and decision making powers of government officials are impeccable and they would never do something like deny a family from boarding a plane because one of their children had a G.I. Joe in their hand and that G.I. Joe has a 2" long plastic M-16 in its hands, right?
By her own words, Senator "Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in" (D-CA) says that if you get on that list, you're going to stay on that list for the rest of your life. No appeal, no due process, you'll have to prove a negative (that you're not a terrorist) every time you attempt to exercise your chilled rights. Which in the end means you'll take your lumps and like them.
This story, filed on 6/16/2016, does not pass the smell test. I bring the date up because in Illinois, you need a FOID (Firearms Identification Card) in order to purchase or possess any firearm in that state. The reporter stated quite clearly in the opening that he has never owned a weapon before this and never had any intent to do so. With that being said, I have to ask, how he was able to obtain a FOID instantaneously? The Orlando shooting was on Sunday 6/12 and it took two days (6/14-6/15) for the events in the story to unfold, then Mr. Steinberg had to write the story. While I may be wrong, I highly doubt a bureaucratized behemoth as Illinois would issue such a license in the same business day.
This story also screams the reporter's feelings, "I DON'T WANNA DO THIS!!!" He had to be ordered to do it, he was thinking about all the reasons why he should not be doing this story and it is quite clear he doesn't want to do it under any circumstances. The reporter had zero concept of Illinois or Chicago firearm laws and didn't know where to look or didn't look very hard.
Mr. Steinberg then has a "flashback" listening to a friend going through a rough time, suggesting he surrender his firearms. He also opines about a house down the street. He has never spoken with nor seen anyone around the house in 15 years, yet he feels qualified to say this:
...A house on the next block has a high fence and an electric gate across the driveway. The blinds are drawn and in 15 years of walking by, I’ve never seen a person there. I would guess the owner is afraid. Maybe just shy. But he sees a hazard requiring that fence, gate and security service that I do not. I imagine he owns a gun. Or many guns. [Emphasis mine]
So, this wonderful, astute, insightful, unbiased person sees no people at this house, does not know if the current owners built the house or fence, does not know the slightest thing about them, yet does not hesitate to describe them as "afraid" and "shy." Mr. Steinberg also implies that they own a lot of guns. Because all rational people thinks like he does.
In the end, the gun store denied the purchase. The statement the store gave to the Chicago Sun-Times (the entire statement was not released, just this section) says,
“it was uncovered that Mr. Steinberg has an admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife.”
So a gun store with a moral compass looks at a man who admitted he's doing this as a stunt for a story, sees that he has had in his past a lack of self-control and violence (the story never said if the domestic charges were dropped, amended or he was convicted) and they decided that he lacks the correct wherewithal to responsibly handle a firearm, even if it's for (as he says) only for a few minutes.
To me, it sounds like the system worked.
To close out the story, our whiny Liberal crybaby writes this:
Now I’ll state what I believe the real reason is: Gun manufacturers and the stores that sell them make their money in the dark. Congress, which has so much trouble passing the most basic gun laws, passed a law making it illegal for the federal government to fund research into gun violence. Except for the week or two after massacres, the public covers its eyes. Would-be terrorists can buy guns. Insane people can buy guns. But reporters . . . that’s a different story. Gun makers avoid publicity because the truth is this: they sell tools of death to frightened people and make a fortune doing so. They shun attention because they know, if we saw clearly what is happening in our country, we’d demand change.
"Congress, which has so much trouble passing the most basic gun laws, passed a law making it illegal for the federal government to fund research into gun violence." That's called neutrality, because every researcher has a bias. Congress did not pass a law making research on that subject against the law, it said the government won't pay for it. If you want a gun study, just give some researchers some money and tell them what the results you want the study to "prove." It's worked for years with the Global Warming crowd, why not the gun control crowd?
"Would-be terrorists can buy guns. Insane people can buy guns. But reporters . . . that’s a different story." Being a nation of laws, this country has a novel concept (that he probably hasn't heard of) that says citizens are "Innocent until proven guilty." The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) is a federal database where felony convictions and mental health incidents are kept. People who attempt to purchase a firearm from a dealer are checked against this database. The problem is the information is at best incomplete. Only about 80% of State felony convictions are reported to the NICS system.
When a reporter goes into a gun shop and takes up a part of the owners time and the reporter makes clear by his words and demeanor that the resulting story will not be kind to the gun store owner, his customers or his industry, I think the gun store owner is justified in being at least a little hostile towards the reporter. Then you have the loss of money the shop owner will experience because the new weapon the reporter bought will have to be sold at a lower price and marked used to the next customer.
I found an article about a Liberal reporter who actually tried to understand why over 3.5 million households own at least one AR-15. In trying to understand, he traveled to Philadelphia (first mistake) and asked a gun shop owner who's an expat from Europe about weapons and gun control in the United States (second mistake).
The Internet is ablaze with how this reporter thought an AR-15 was "It’s horrifying, menacing and very very loud." He also reported that:
The recoil bruised my shoulder. The brass shell casings disoriented me as they flew past my face. The smell of sulfur and destruction made me sick. The explosions — loud like a bomb — gave me a temporary form of PTSD. For at least an hour after firing the gun just a few times, I was anxious and irritable.
I would like to commend this reporter because he got way out of his comfort zone to do try and report objectively. Not everyone can leave their comfort zones. Not everyone likes the experience of shooting a weapon and you know what? That's okay.
Just as a side note, with the exception of the "explosion" of the rifle report and the shell casings, it sounds like he took his first drag on a cigarette.
I do blame the gun shop owner for probably making it rough on the reporter. It seems from the pictures that he shot the AR-15 in an indoor range. That alone will make a rifle report significantly louder (and the smell more intense), especially if it was only 5 or 6 lanes. If the reporter bruised his shoulder, that means that most likely he was not holding the butt of the weapon firmly against his shoulder or standing correctly. Either the owner didn't tell the reporter to hold the weapon firmly against his shoulder, or the reporter didn't listen, I don't know and the article does not elaborate. If the brass was flying across his face, he was either shooting a right-handed weapon left-handed or the brass was bouncing off the lane divider and back into his field of view. As a Patron member of the NRA and an avid firearm enthusiast for over 25 years, if my second experience firing a weapon (the reporter had fired a handgun before) had been as unpleasant as this, I might have been turned off by that kind of experience.
I also want to criticize all of the people who posted hateful comments to this reporter. He actively and with no pre-conceived notions tried to understand the attraction this weapon has on so many people. If we as Pro-Second Amendment activists had been supportive and instructive rather than critical, we might have ended up with one person in the Liberal-dominated media who might have been sympathetic to our side.
Remember, John Lott started out his seminal study on firearms as a member of the anti-gun camp. He started out with the intent to prove gun-control worked. After his study showed that firearms in law-abiding citizens prevented over a million crimes a year, that's when he switched sides and became pro-Second Amendment. We, you and I, had that chance here with this reporter and we blew it.
Over the years of this blog I have a self-imposed policy of not commenting too quickly on events such as the Orlando Pulse shooting. I like facts to come out so I do not go off in the wrong direction. I did not follow my own advice this time, so I will keep going and correcting my course until I arrive where I should have if I had waited.
I want to start this by saying I commend CNN. A friend watched their special on the attack Sunday and told me they never showed a picture of the shooter nor ever mentioned his name. This "denying of the legacy" should be the standard to which all news agencies should follow. Let this piece of trash disappear into anonymity forever. I have "X'ed" out his name in my original post on this tragedy.
In the three days since the shooting, facts have come out that indicate this was probably a crime of hate, rather than terrorism. It turns out the shooter was a regular at that nightclub. Many of the survivors recognized him right off. It also seems that he had a profile on a Gay dating site. No one will ever know for sure, my best guess is the shooter either could not reconcile his homosexual feelings with what his father was saying ("all gays should be killed") or some kind of jilted/denied relationship. Only time will tell.
I saw this on FB, and it took a while to get to the original article.
Remember when the CEO of Chik-fil-A publicly proclaimed that he was not in support of same-sex marriage? Do you remember all of the backlash, protests and boycotts of his company by all of the militant pro-LGBT organizations? Do you remember the "Chik-fil-hAte" campaign on social media? I do.
It turns out that the Chik-fil-A store located at 11350 University Blvd, Orlando, FL 32817opened up Sunday the 12th of June to cook hundreds of sandwiches and brew gallons of sweet tea, then gave them to the people who were donating blood to help those wounded in the Orlando shooting. Without fanfare or publicity, they demonstrated compassion and support of all people, regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation. Wouldn't it be great if more people lived up to this ideal?
This is a fine example of "hate the sin, not the sinner." If someone does not approve of one passion of your life, that does not mean they hate you as a person. I highly disapprove of many Liberal policies and stances. That does not mean I hate the person espousing the ideal. I have multiple friends with Liberal viewpoints. I respect them for being passionate for what they believe in, no matter how much I believe they *might* be wrong (I'll admit, I am not infallible, *I* might be the one in error). And just because that other person and I disagree on that one point, we find that we agree on other subjects, as well as share hobbies and other passions where that point of disagreement would never come up.
When we hate others because of one point of disagreement, we limit ourselves to our own detriment.
If you want to call and support this store, the phone number is (407) 737-0002. If you are viewing this on your phone, you can click on the number and it will call for you.
Not even all of the victims are identified and already the line for more gun-control is out the door, down the street and around the corner.
This article by The Telegraph, Orlando gunman used AR-15 assault rifle to kill his victims - the weapon of choice for mass shooters is a bad mix of sensationalism and incomplete knowledge. And frankly, to have another country to lecture us about gun-control who requires by law a "proportional defense" and a "retreat if able" tone to their laws, plus now that there is almost total gun control there, now because of the 130,000+ annual knife attacks, they are going for knife control there, all I can say is, "Kettle, meet pot."
In England, the law requires you to retreat from the confrontation if you are able. You must retreat out of your own home if bad guys are beating on your door, as there is no "castle law" over there. For the "proportional defense," if you are accosted by a criminal with a knife, you can defend yourself with no more than a knife. The English laws stipulate the blade length may be no more than 3" in length, unless it is required for your work. If the assailant is unarmed, all you can have are your fists. If the assailant is a 25 year-old MMA fighter going after a 50 year-old regular bloke, that won't end well for the target. If you bring a gun to a knife fight, or a knife to a fist fight to defend and protect yourself, the target of the criminal will also be accosted by the police.
Now that you have an understanding of how they view self-defense, the article in question lists the AR-15 as an "Assault Weapon," which to anyone knowledgeable knows that's false on its face. "Assault weapon" means the weapon is capable of semi-automatic (one trigger pull = one bullet) AND fully automatic fire (one trigger pull = empty magazine).
The article talks about how there are 3,700,000 households with an AR-15. May such owners I know have more than one of them, but for the sake of argument we'll stick with 3,700,000 weapons. They then list FOUR mass shootings and a total of 61 people were killed where AR-15's were used. With Saturday's tragedy, that's five events and 91 casualties. I'm a generous guy and I don't want to devalue their numbers in any way, shape or form. Let's slip the decimal point two positions to the right and make that 500 mass shootings and 9,100 dead.
500 mass shootings divided by 3,700,000 weapons equals 0.0001351% of all AR-15's in civilian hands, or 99.99987% of AR-15's weren't used by crazy people in mass shootings.
As far as the 6,100 people killed in our horribly inflated numbers, which is still less than 1/3rd the number of people killed every year by falls. Of course, those mass shootings took place over the past 3 1/2 years, so you're comparing 6,100 against 105,728.
This phrase shows the author has zero idea how things work in the US:
In the state of Florida, anyone over the age of 18 can buy an AR-15 as no state permit is required. The same goes for pistols and shotguns.
I cannot say that statement is wholly factually correct. Anyone over 18 can legally buy a rifle or shotgun. You have to be 21 or older to legally purchase a handgun. And while there is no "state permit," all of us who have purchased a firearm knows that the Federal laws apply, meaning the dreaded BATFE Form 4473 must be used in all purchases of firearms from a licensed firearms dealer.
The real reason why there are mass shootings anywhere is not the weapon. It's the heart of the user. Getting rid of weapons won't stop killings and mass events. The bad guys will adapt.
So Xxxx Xxx Xxxxxxxx Xxxxxx, who is a US-born citizen of Afghanistan immigrants, opened fire in an LGBT club Saturday, killing 50 and wounding dozens more. He "became upset" when he saw two men kissing months ago.
While facts are still coming out, this much is known:
He worked for G4S Secure Solutions USA Inc., a major DHS security contractor since 2007.
He was investigated by the FBI in 2013 and 2014 without definitive findings.
He was on the FBI's watch list, so he was a "known wolf."
He openly praised ISIS to co-workers.
He openly voiced homophobic and racial comments to a police officer, who did report it to Xxxxxx's employer which did nothing.
Why this guy was not fired after the first investigation I don't know. Why he wasn't fired after he opened his pie hole and said "I support ISIS" to a co-worker is nothing short of malfeasance on the part of the co-workers (if they didn't report him) or management (if the co-workers did report him).
Of course, our Illustrious Leader made comments on this horrific tragedy. I'm surprised he waited until 3:45 of the statement to start the "how easy it is to get guns" shtick. Again.
This article purports that a Senate bill (not mentioned in the article, or any source linked to by the article) stated that “Senate Republicans rejected a bill that aims to stop suspected terrorists from legally buying guns." Obviously research on things like facts have no bearing on advancing the agenda. I discovered all of the following facts with an "exhaustive 10 minute search" in various search engines.
This amendment died within minutes, as there was an objection to the amendment due to section 313(b)(1)(c) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, ironically known as "Byrd's Rule." The amendment was ruled out of order after an attempt to waive Byrd's Rule. This was named after KKK Exalted Cyclops Robert Byrd (D-WV). Byrd's rule allows for blockage of legislation "if it purports significantly to increase the federal deficit beyond a ten-year term or is otherwise an 'extraneous matter' as set forth in the Budget Act." Gun-control legislation slipped into a budget bill the day after a mass shooting I think can be classified as "an extraneous matter."
I bring this up because the concept of the entire article is a bald faced lie. Suppose for a moment that it did get into the final version of the bill and the bill passed into law (it didn't, President Obama vetoed this bill and Congress couldn't override the veto), it would take at least 6 months for the agencies charged with enforcement of this part of the law to finalize how they would handle all of the administrative tasks involved with enforcement. Xxxxxx had his weapons probably well before the San Bernardino Shooting (Feinstein's inspiration for the amendment), so this "legislation" would not have prevented Saturday's catastrophe anyway.
The part you have to be scared about is the legal concepts and entanglements associated with such a "law." Because it means a person merely "suspected" of being a terrorist would be denied their Second Amendment rights. There is no legal process involving any proof to get someones name on such a list, all it takes is "suspicion." Currently there is no legal recourse for you to get your name off the list. If there was, you would have to prove you're not a "terrorist." I need someone to tell me how can you legally prove something that you haven't done? This concept violates every legal concept associated with the concept of "presumed innocent until proved guilty" enshrined in the Constitution.
I have come to the conclusion that our politicians scare me more than the terrorists do. The terrorists can only kill me once, the politicians can strip away everything I have with the stroke of a pen until I am left with only the thoughts in my head.
With Liberals, the agenda always comes first. Everything and anything must be done to advance the agenda, no matter the cost. In this case, gun control.
Katie Couric and Director Stephanie Soechtig (figuratively) shoots themselves in the foot with this "documentary," Under the Gun. They are so intent on advancing the agenda they massively compromise their integrity by doing this:
That nine-second "pause" after her "question" was derived from what is called "B-roll footage" shot before the interview began. If you notice between the video above and audio below that the question Katie asks is slightly different, which certainly implies that the video question was dubbed in during post-production (when they were adding in the B-roll).
Kudos to Katie's pro-Second Amendment "targets," the Virginia Citizens Defense League, because they did not trust her and thus covertly recorded audio of the interview. Here is the salient part:
So, the film implies that the people interviewed by Katie were left speechless and without an answer, while in reality the answers were prompt, concise, rational, thoughtful, realistic and totally against the documentary's agenda.
Director Stephanie Soechtig indicated that she, not Couric, had editorial control. She tried to justify the deception by releasing this statement:
"My intention was to provide a pause for the viewer to have a moment to consider this important question before presenting the facts on Americans' opinions on background checks."
To tell you the truth, I could have accepted Soechtig's statement, if the responses from the VCDL had been included after the "pause." But since they weren't, I have to conclude that the intent for the exclusion was deception because the responses didn't advance the agenda.
I especially like that phrase, "...the facts on Americans' opinions..." because opinions do not change facts. People's opinions can agree or disagree with the facts, depending on how knowledgeable they are on the subject. If opinions are derived from biased commentary by the media on the subject of background checks, it is the fault of the media providing biased (instead of balanced) commentary and the people listening for not performing their own due diligence on the subject before parroting the biased information.
I also do not accept Soechtig falling on her sword (figuratively) and accepting all of the blame. If Couric (who was the interviewer for the film and also the Executive Producer, who is the bankroller of the documentary) had any integrity towards the truth rather than advancing the agenda, she could have been critical of the documentary. Instead, Couric released this statement after Soechtig released the one above:
"I support Stephanie's statement and am very proud of the film."
I have also discovered that the makers of this "documentary" scheduled an hour to interview John Lott, author of More Guns, Less Crime. Mr. Lott was an anti-gunner who in the 90's performed a study to prove his side of the argument. What he discovered conducting that study caused him to switch sides in the debate. Again, they scheduled an hour to interview him and the interview ended up with four hours of tape. How much of that four hours made it into Under the Gun? Zip, zero, zilch, nada. Because nothing he said advanced the agenda.
Just in case you think that there might be a slight possibility that this could be a balanced documentary, please check out the partners of the film, I have the links below. Eleven pro gun-control groups, zero pro-Second Amendment groups. Kind of telling, eh?
I ask that you click on each link, so this blog shows up in their refer lists. I want them to follow the links back here and know I am against their agenda. They will open in individual windows so you don't have to keep clicking "back":
This is a quick post, expounding on what I have learned since I made the post onThose in power... a few days ago.
First of all, I have learned that delegates for Sanders were intentionally given the wrong information on the time and place of the meeting. I am unaware of any Clinton delegates receiving erroneous information, and all of the Sanders delegates did not receive that bad information. This can only mean that the Party wanted to make sure to "shave" any votes in Clinton's favor.
Second, the initial votes on rules changes were held while many Sanders delegates were still outside the hall, in line trying to register. I have heard it both ways that the vote was held earlier than scheduled, or not delayed because there were delegates were still filing in.
To show the other side of things, I have heard that many Sanders delegates were not properly registered in time. Remember, Sanders was an Independent who only "caucuses with Democrats." He had to join the Democrat party to run against Clinton. I guess not all of his followers did the same thing. As far as the "rapping the gavel and walking off," I have also learned that that meeting had run a couple of hours over the scheduled time and the hall had to be cleared, plus the cost of security was about to go way up because the security personnel were going to start getting overtime.
As it has been said before, "The truth is a three-edged sword; your side, my side and the truth." No side is totally right, no side is totally wrong. I always look at the facts of the matter and what the truth actually is.
