Gun Suicide

Oregon gun store owner tried to block troubled woman from buying gun | OregonLive.com:

The woman at the counter of Keith's Sporting Goods wanted a handgun. She wasn't interested in price, quality or how to use it safely. She spoke slowly that day in June as she made one request: Would the clerk load it? 

Maria Ward doesn't judge her customers. Americans have a right to buy firearms, after all. But this woman seemed traumatized. Ward worried she planned to hurt someone. "I'm sorry," Ward told her. "I'm not going to sell you a firearm." Ward, who owns the Gresham gun store with her husband, then did something she'd never done before. She warned the Oregon State Police not to allow anyone else to sell Brenda Nyhof Dunn a gun. 

But the agency, which performs background checks for most gun sales in Oregon, told Ward there was nothing it could do under the law. 

The next day, Nyhof Dunn drove to Dick's Sporting Goods in Gresham. She bought a rifle and ammunition, according to the police report, which included a receipt from the transaction. She paid $10 to have the Oregon State Police perform a background check, which she easily passed. 

Hours later, she fatally shot herself. She was 36.

...

In the movie "Jurassic Park",  the character Malcolm (played by Jeff Goldblum) famously stated: "Life will find a way".

In real life, it is true also that death will find a way.

In America, gun control advocates famously proffer statistics such as "xx.x% of people who kill themselves use a gun", usually phrased to imply that guns are the root cause of many suicides.

They make this statement to advance their thesis; guns are only to kill people, and without guns fewer people would be killed.  Or, fewer would kill themselves.

A February 12, 2013 article in "Psychology Today" offers a different set of statistics:

Japan has averaged over 30,000 suicides annually for the past 14 years. That’s almost 24 suicides per 100,000 people. In America the rate is 12 per 100,000 people, half that of Japan.
Japanese who decide to end their life chose jumping in front of a train, hanging, medication overdose, leaping off a high building or the latest craze -- using common household products to create the poisonous gas hydrogen sulfide.
Statistically most completed suicides in the US are indeed by firearms, simply because they're lethal and readily available. But if they were not, someone who was determined to end his life would find a way to do it, à la Japan.

(This, in spite of the fact that according to a 1993 article published by the Asia Pacific Law Review by Dave Kopel, labeled "Japanese Gun Control"  "... (gun) control in Japan is the most stringent in the Democratic world").

And this beautiful, vital young woman was determined to end her life.

It was her choice.   Was it wrong?  I think so.  I've known more than one person who committed suicide  using a gun.  I've seen the damage it does to their families. Suicide is the most selfish act one person can commit without directly involving another victim.  Some religions consider suicide a mortal sin; which I've always considered  "after the fact judgementalism" but that doesn't necessarily make them wrong.

Brenda Nyhof Dunn was so disappointed in her life, and so eager to end her existence, that nobody could help her.  She had been married, and when that union failed she lapsed into depression.  Her belief in God did not provide the stability she needed.  Her family was as supportive as possible, but she found no solace there, either.   She had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but medications and treatment didn't help.  She had committed herself to voluntary hospitalization several times.

Nothing helped.

So she went "gun store" shopping.

The first place she went, the licensed firearm dealer recognized that she had severe emotional problems and refused to sell her a firearm.

Apparently, she learned to modify her dialogue and finally she was able to present herself as a "normal person" when legally purchasing a firearm.

Her determination to end her life was recognized by both mental health professionals and her family and friends, but her name never entered the system which was designed to prevent exactly this kind of tragedy.

The Gun Control Advocates would characterize this story as representing a failure of "The System".  And they would be right.

But they would rectify the situation by imposing more laws.  More restrictions.  More impositions on legal, responsible, SANE gun owners.

Where does it stop?

We cannot stop a determined person from taking her own life.  Existing laws didn't stop Brenda Nyhof Dunn any more than it has stopped criminals from illegally acquiring firearms.

Brenda Nyhof Dunn was a criminal, in the sense that she deliberately broke the law in order to achieve an end which she considered desirable.  And criminals are defined as ... that sort of person.  I mean no disrespect to Brenda Nyhof Dunn or to her friends and family and other people who tried to help her.  It's a definition, not a characterization.


   
More laws are not the answer.  The problem is not one of legality, but of society.

Suicide is illegal in America, as it is in Japan;  but here, there and everywhere it's the one law which mandates punishment only for unsuccessful attempts.   The solution is not to regulate objects, but to provide societal solutions to the most difficult problems imaginable.

I don't have any answers here.   All I know is that legislators have a single hammer .. enacting laws; and to them, every problem looks like a nail.

We've gone about as far as we can with legislation, counseling, and even the love of a family.

Yes, perhaps we can "save just ONE child", but we can't save ALL of the children.

That sounds cold, but today the world seems colder than we can bear.

DIY

"Do It Yourself" (DIY) is probably good advice for "normal" people.  On the other hand, I don't know that many normal people.  Among those fine folks, I do not consider myself a member of that unique and much to be envied confederation.

I don't "DO"  DIY.  I once fell in love with a woman who admired me for my sensitivity.  She explained that for her entire adult life, every time she mentioned that there was a "problem", the men in her life rushed to fix it for her.  She said that I was the first man she ever met who didn't automatically assume that a casual mention of a problem was a challenge to my masculine expertise in fixing her problems for her.

In a rare moment of sanity, I didn't bother to explain that the reason I didn't feel congenitally obligated to "fix things" was because I was incompetent.

Much later in our relationship, I related this story to her:

Once I had a problem with my toilet.  The rod from the flush-handle to the float bowl had corroded to the point where it broke.  It was a two-dollar part, so I bought the replacement part and attempted to remove the flush-handle from the toilet tank.

I turned the nut the wrong way, and thinking it was just stuck I applied a little extra Masculine Muscle to it.

The ceramic tank cracked.  I couldn't replace the tank, because the toilet in the rental house was too old, and no parts were available.  I ended up spending $250 for a new toilet, plus another $*** to hire a plumber to replace it.

(The woman who I was then sharing the house with chided me, saying "why didn't you tell me?  I could have fixed it for you.")

I have never attempted to 'repair' anything more expensive than a kitchen timer since then.  Come to think of it, that repair consisted of tearing apart the old kitchen timer, then throwing away the parts and buying a new kitchen timer.

So for those well-meaning readers who suggest (or think) that I should have applied the DIY solution to my broken car:  thanks, but no thanks.  Experience has proven to my satisfaction that it is ultimately MUCH cheaper for me to hire competent labor, than to break a mechanical object far beyond the original damage and ultimately hire the same person to not only fix the original 'broken-ness'  AND also to repair the damage which I incurred in a misguided attempt to "save money".

I spent 30 years fixing computer software;  but when it comes to mechanical stuff ... I've learned my lesson.

Non-invasive surgery: not next century, but next year?

The Operating Room of the Future - InSightec - Dr. Kobi Vortman Technion Alumnus - YouTube

    (Hat Tip to "The G-Man")

I don't know if this is legitimate, or even 'nearly possible' today.

It's a subject which is very important to me, personally.  If this technology had been available only a few years earlier, and it worked on cancer tumors of the lungs, then my SWMBO would still be joining me at monthly pistol matches.

This is legitimately within the "... if it saves just one child ..." realm of importnace.

Third Time Is The Charm

On March fourth (which is, incidentally, the only date which is a "military command" ... sorry, I can't resist bad puns) I blew up my gun.   See "Geek KaBOOM!"   The gunsmith is still waiting for parts and a 10mm 'reamer', but that looks like it's going to run me around $700.

A couple of weeks later my desktop computer just ... stopped working.  No 'KaBOOM' moment, it was merely a quiet vampire-byte of self-destruction.  It cost exactly $695 to replace it.  And the new computer is not as fast as the one it replaced.

I have been talking (not always here) about how bad luck ALWAYS comes in threes. (Last year it was my dishwasher, my clothes washer, and my clothes drier which all self-destructed in a short time period;  I was lucky, my landlord paid for and installed a used dishwasher at no cost to me.)   In the course of these discussions, I postulated that the third Bad Luck moment would probably be the failure of some expensive mechanical 'thing' which I always take for granted.  Such as, for example, my car.

Some days, it just doesn't pay to get out of bed.  I went to the State Capital this afternoon for a "GRENZ RAY" treatment on my hands (which, incidentally, is working pretty good) and on my way back home I pulled off into a parking lot in Albany to take a cell phone call.   Then I tried to do a 3-point turn to get back onto the street.  My car, the "Damned Old Ford" (DOF) stuttered, and died.

 I spent 40 minutes trying to restart it ... it acted like an ignition problem, or a fuel-pump problem, or maybe electronics.  I don't know, we've already established that I am a deadly force of destruction when it comes to Mechanical Objects (including Light Bulbs).

Finally, I called Triple A.  They sent a tow truck, which carted The DOF and The Geek back home to Wilson Motors.  The Wilson Boys took my name, phone number, and told me to give them two hundred dollars for diagnosis and they would call me in the morning.

Question for the audience:  How much do you think this is going to cost me?

______________________________

As an aside, apropos of nothing at all, Colonel Jeff Cooper (in his "Gargantuan Gunsite Gossip" collections, either #1 or #2) had a favorite saying which I am reminded of in moments like this:

There ain't nothing that you can't fix

With seven-hundred dollars and a 30-06

Yes, I have a .30-06.  I'm just tired of having to pony up the $700 every time I turn around.

"Gun Control": Another Homer for TSM

The Smallest Minority: Gun Control:

The Brady Campaign report Brady Background Check: 15 Years of Saving Lives (PDF) proclaims that over that 15 year period through 2008 the background check "blocked" 1,631,000 purchases, but the DoJ report states that from 2006 through 2010 a total of only 209 guilty pleas or guilty verdicts were recorded due to background check prosecutions. Moreover, the "referrals for prosecution" declined from 273 in 2006 to 62 in 2010.

"So what?" you may ask. Well, if the prohibited person wasn't put in jail, what was to stop him or her from getting a gun some other way? I mean, if we're not even willing to imprison the stupid felons, what's the point? It's as though the DoJ didn't want the background system to do the job we were told it was created to do. And if a Federal program fails, what is the inevitable result of that failure? Do It Again, ONLY HARDER!

But what if the purpose of the background check system isn't to keep guns out of the hands of criminals?  Then what is it for?  What if its actual purpose is "less gun sales"?  Each year we've added well in excess of four million new or imported old guns to those already in circulation, bringing the total in private hands to somewhere in excess of 310 million by one recent estimate. (PDF) Well, obviously it's failed there too, and thus: Do It Again, ONLY HARDER!

And when Sandy Hook occurred, what was the proposed banner legislation?  Strengthened background checks!  (Along with the inevitable "assault weapon ban" and magazine restriction renewal, of course.) 

I concur totally that "the real problem is the ongoing violence that is non-spree related" which has been declining without new gun control laws, but apparently neither the government nor the "gun safety" groups do. Why do I say that? Well, instead of just taking them at their word, I observe their actions - with the exception of the Violence Policy Center which states plainly that its charter is the disarming of the American public.  If "the ongoing violence that is not spree-related" was what was being addressed, we wouldn't be having this argument.


It has been well documented for decades that the majority of violent crime up to and including homicide is committed by a small, identifiable population - people with prior police records of violent offenses:

I have often cited Uber-Blogs by Kevin Baker of "The Smallest Minority" as (a) my single most consistent Daily Read, and (b) one of the best writers on Second Amendment issues that I know of ... bar none.

In fact,  his research is so extensive, his sources so authoritative, and his connective logic so smooth that I despair  of measuring up to standards which he has established.

Sometimes I think I should write a single post, and re-present it as new post each day; the post would consist of a single line:

What are you looking here for?   Go read The Smallest Minority!"

In this latest Uber-blog (see the link at the top), Kevin addresses all the issues I had addressed yesterday, but with better organization and a HUGE amount of reference links to his sources.   It's not just observations and opinion,  but a thorough review of the history of both gun-control and gun rights going back to the sixties.

I intend to bookmark this article because ... well, in the move to The New Blogger last February I lost all of my best links and haven't yet found them all.    I recommend that you also bookmark it for the same purpose.  Where else are you going to find, for example, a link to the ....
"...gun control study commissioned by the Carter Administration in 1978, published in 1983 and titled Under the Gun: Weapons, Crime, and Violence in America:"?

Besides that, it's a damned good read.

Keep up the good work, Kevin.  America is depending upon you to keep us informed on the issues behind the issues.

(There.  That should assure me of another year's tacit permission to steal cite shamelessly from his research.)

You May Be "The President", but We're Still "The People"!

Senate blocks gun-control legislation in blow to Obama | Reuters:

The Senate on Wednesday rejected a bipartisan plan to expand background checks for gun buyers, dealing a crippling blow to President Barack Obama's campaign to curb gun violence after the Newtown school massacre.  

 Despite emotional pleas from families of victims of the Newtown, Connecticut, shootings and broad public support nationwide, the plan to extend background checks to online and gun-show sales failed on a 54-46 vote, six short of the 60-vote hurdle needed to clear the Senate. 

 "All in all, this was a pretty shameful day for Washington," an angry Obama said of the vote, adding the effort "is not over."

Hmm ... a great deal of furor over nothing much at all?

You may be forgiven if you have already forgotten the details of Obama's propose "Reasonable"
limitations to the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, but it's worth remembering that the key element was "UNIVERSAL REGISTRATION".

As is true with all catch-phrases, the actual definition was vague, and subject to interpretation.  Originally .. no clarification was offered.  After opponents objected to the vague generality, the Administration offered that:

1. It was intended to close the "Gun Hole Loophole;
2. It offered not objection to gun-owners transferring guns to "family members"

Pointedly, there were no provisions for any other "transfers", including: renting guns at a firing range; selling (or even loaning) guns to friends of long acquaintance and confidence (such as at a shooting match); or .. whatever other reason a private, law-abiding citizen should deep appropriate.

Most importantly, the dialogue (such as it was) did not ever address the question of registration.

In order to enforce the law, the federal government would have to know  who owned what guns (by make, model and serial number).  Without that information, they would have been unable to track firearms ownership .. and eventually to trace it back to the 'original' owner.

How else would they have been able to track transfers?

This is tantamount to registration; if you con't register your guns, the government cannot track them.  If they cannot track them, they can't tell if you are "violating the law".

If the Government can't know if you are violating their (definitively illegal) laws, then they cannot control the flow of firearms in the United States of America .. which is constitutionally obliged to PROTECT firearms ownership; not to restrict it, not to regulate it, and certainly not to "track" it.

Every now and then, I am surprised (AMAZED) and pleased that there are still some politicians who actually have read, and understand, the provisions of the Constitution.  They didn't even have to ask the Supreme Court to rule on the constitionality of the law;  they saw that it was WRONG, and they STOPPED the efforts of this wanna-be "Constitutional Lawyer" in his tracks, before he was allowed to willingly and knowingly violate the Constitution which he has sworn to protect and defend, according to his Oath of Office:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

We have three branches of Government:  The Executive (the president), the Legislative (congress) and the Judicial (the supreme court).

Isn't it nice that at least ONE of the three branches knows its duty?

And that they have the courage, the determination, and the HONOR to uphold the duty to which they were elected?

Now .. if only our Executive Branch understood and upheld that duty ....

_________________

As Don McNeil use to say on his daily morning radio show "The Breakfast Club":

"Let's all march around the Breakfast Table!"

May You Live In Interesting Times

Cogito Ergo Geek: Killer Solar Storm Predicted for 2013:

Weather Scientists at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration early this month predicted that in May of 2113 the most severe Solar Storm since 1858 will blast the earth with solar radiation. The problem isn't sunburns or melanoma, it's the drastic effect on communication and electronics.

This is a wake-up call.

And yes, I AM "blogging my own blog".

Four years ago I cited a study which predicted that solar activity would create a "The End Of The World As We Know It" (TEOTWAWKI) situation.

It's now "that year".

Hope you're enjoying yourself today.  This is as good as it's going to get for a while.  Combined with an economic Depression which is predicted to  make the 1920's look like a temporary lay-off, we may discover that we have been inflicted with that ancient Chinese Curse: "May You Live In Interesting Times"

Hopefully, we won't have to wrap our windows in plastic film.

I'm not the only one who is writing about a severe interruption in electronic devices.

And you wonder why I'm such a cranky old man?

Bookworm: "Military Science Fiction

Introduction - Baen Books:

I don't know any author, other than a few who are — to speak bluntly — cretins, who hears about people lending his or her books to their friends, or checking them out of a library, with anything other than pleasure. Because they understand full well that, in the long run, what maintains and (especially) expands a writer's audience base is that mysterious magic we call: word of mouth.

Word of mouth, unlike paid advertising, comes free to the author — and it's ten times more effective than any kind of paid advertising, because it's the one form of promotion which people usually trust. That being so, an author can hardly complain — since the author paid nothing for it either. 

And it is that word of mouth, percolating through the reading public down a million little channels, which is what really puts the food on an author's table. Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise. 

Think about it. How many people lend a book to a friend with the words: "You ought a read this! It's really terrible!" How many people who read a book they like which they obtained from a public library never mention it to anyone? As a rule, in my experience, people who frequently borrow books from libraries are bibliophiles. And bibliophiles, in my experience, usually can't refrain from talking about books they like.

 (Eric Flint: "First Librarian", Baen Free Books)

It all began, of course, with Robert Heinlein.

My love affair with books actually had it genesis with other others, such as Lewis Padget (Henry Kornbluth) and Phillip Wylie ("Tomorrow", "A Generation of Vipers") ... two  "speculative fiction" writers who I accidentally discovered in the Umatilla County Library in Pendleton, Oregon, sometime about 1960.

Searching through the card files, I discovered that these were examples of "Science Fiction" .. and I was hooked.   Because that is when I discovered Robert Heinlein ("Starship Troopers", "Have Space Suit, Will Travel", "Farnham's Freehold" etc.)

So I grew up reading Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov, and subscribing to all the pulp sci-fi magazines like "Amazing Stories",  and "Astounding", and "Galaxy Magazine", and .. well, if you have traveled the same road, you know the titles; if you haven't, you never will. They're all gone.  Defunct.  Out of business.

Then the movie biz caught on, and we had giant rabbits discovered by Matt Dillon (James Arnez, in "THEM", and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" ... okay, I admit that I was prepped for this invasion of the mind snatchers by watching "Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen" at the Saturday matinees in my local movie theater.  Do you remember "Food of the Gods", and much later "The Stepford Wives", "Westworld", and "Mysterious Planet" and " ... and ... oh, I have to cut this part short. 

No wonder I stood in line for two hours to watch the first "STAR WARS" movie!

And Television didn't help, when they discovered that "STAR TREK" was worth millions!

(Not to mention 1959, when "Space Patrol" was a regular Thursday Night feature on Radio .. right after "The Lone Ranger" ..... .. so much for cutting this short.)

But somewhere, after reading everything that Heinlein and Clarke and Azimov wrote (an exaggeration, Azimov wrote 200+ books, most of them science FACT rather than FICTION), I grew up.  I got married.  I went to war.  I had children.  I got divorced.

And somewhere in that period, I discovered a new author: David Drake.  Drake is a Vietnam Vet, who is a failed bus driver, accomplished Professional College Student (LLD, among other things), and started writing about The War .. but set among "other" settings.

So I bought every thing HE ever wrote!  (Until he started writing Swords and Sorcery novels, which I respectfully eschew because nothing can compete with "Fafner and the Grey Mouser"  by Barry Smith, AKA Fritz Lieber, whom I read heavily in High School and continued to read for years.)

Sorry .. I get distracted.

Drake co-authored with Steven Stirling (The General), so I bought everything HE wrote, too!  Even the one-or-two dogs.  (The Draka series, and the celebrated "Corvallis" series, and the associated "Nantucket" series, and .. and .. oh, this is 'cutting it short?)

One of the series that Drake started with Stirling was finished with Eric Flint writing the last of the five-book series, so I started reading Flint.  Which somehow lead me to David Weber, who authors single-handedly the magnificent "Honor Harrington" series .. a take off on Horation Hornblower.

Then things changed about ten years ago.   There's a whole new generation of authors in what has developed into the "Military Science Fiction" series when Weber co-authored a 4-book series (slated for more books in the future, as of this date) with a young writer named JOHN RINGO.

I thought Drake was a dark madman; I thought Stirling was certifiable .. a genius, but still quite insane in terms of taking Mil-Sci-Fi to a new level.     But Ringo is just sick!

I say that as an honorific; the man's a genius, and I hate it when authors who are younger than I am prove that talent will always succeed where mere age and enthusiasm will not.

Ringo has been producing a couple of books (or three) every year, for about ten years;  I just bought his latest issue in the "GHOST" series, and he has got the touch.

Ringo ALSO has co-authored (is this a spawning thing with authors?) books with upcoming authors like Travis Taylor, Tom Kratman, and Michael Z. Williamson.     ALL of whom have authored excellent novels in that same genre, and all of whom I (once again) have bought everything they have written.

Whew!

Which brings me to the denoument .. I have 37 banker boxes of books, because there isn't room for them all on the FOUR bookshelves in my home.  (I keep 'respectable' authors, like Robert Rourke and John D. MacDonald and ... sorry, I know; not another list!) on the bookshelves.

Somewhere along the line, I discovered that while I often find female novelists to be too maudlin for my taste, there's room for Elizabeth Moon ("Seranos" series) and Lois McMaster Bujold ("VorKosigan" series).

...........

If you've read this far .. and I know that this is a subject which I have treated in similarly hideous detail a couple of hears ago ... you will have realized that what I have just done is to provide a reading list to folks who may have read one or more of these authors.  If you like them, you'll like these.

In my retirement, when I'm not writing cranky blogs about the Second Amendment and Politics and Terrorism ... I'm reading.  I've worked for over fifty years, from mowing lawns as a pre-teen through delivering Caterpillar Tractor Parts to the great dams being built on the Columbia River, to working summers as a vacation-relief route salesman for the Nabisco Cookie Company, to serving as an Infantry Platoon Sargent in Vietnam, to working for 30+ years as a computer geek.  I've accumulated enough books that I can read one a day through my retirement, and (one of the benefits of getting old) when I go through my OWN library stacks, I often don't recognize a book that I've read before .. usually, several times.  Some of the series I reread annually ... I just finished a book today, which (according to my records) I last read in 2002.   I enjoyed it as much today as I did 11 years ago.

Okay, THIS is what it looks like when I "cut it short".

x
x
x
x
x

Veterans forced to prove they’re worthy of gun rights

Veterans forced to prove they’re worthy of gun rights:

...when hundreds, perhaps thousands, of veterans began receiving letters like the one dispatched from the Portland, Ore., office of the Department of Veterans Affairs, alarm bells went off. WND reported only days ago that a veteran in Oregon received a letter informing him of “a report from Portland VA Medical Center on December 3, 2012.” Evidence already in The letter warned the vet that “evidence indicates that you are not able to handle your VA benefit payments because of a physical or mental condition.” “We propose to rate you incompetent for VA purposes. This means we must decide if you are able to handle your VA benefit payments. We will base our decision on all the evidence we already have including any other evidence you sent to us.” Completion of the incompetency determination would mean a “fiduciary” would be appointed to manage the veteran’s payments. The VA also warned: “A determination of incompetency will prohibit you from purchasing, possessing, receiving, or transporting a firearm or ammunition. If you knowingly violate any of these prohibitions, you may be fined, imprisoned, or both.”   [emphasis added]  The letter then offered the veteran an opportunity to “request a personal hearing within 30 days from the date at the top of this letter to present evidence or  argument on any important point in your claim.”

I only occasionally read World Net Daily news articles; they're almost invariably easily verifiable, but often  titillating.  So when I read something like this, which suggests that the Federal government is deliberately undermining the Second Amendment rights of veterans, I am inclined to take it with a grain of salt.

Which is to say .. I'm not sure whether I believe it or not. Is it true, or is it "The Big Lie"?

The article presents PDF-style images which purport to be the actually documents which at least one veteran has received from the Federal Government.

Again, I'll reserve judgement until I can follow up on the story.

I only present it here because .. if it's true .. then it's not just a tiny little blip on the horizon, but A Very BIG story.

I'll get back to you on this.

Oh yeah, SHE knows what she's talking about?

Aren't we glad that our elected representatives have such a keen understanding of the issues involved?



Well .. perhaps not so much so.

U. S. Representative (D-CO) Diane DeGette ... what do we know about her?

(1) ... she's a nutter
(2) ... fifteen rounds, seven rounds, eight round, ten rounds ... it's all arbitrary.  These people have NO idea at all concerning which is the 'right magazine capacity'.  If you think that they don't know what the heck they're talking about, and/or the consequences of their arbitrarily designated "rightness" of "High-Capacity" magazines, you're right.
(3) Infringes upon the Second Amendment.  Arbitrarily?  Can there be a more pertinent argument AGAINST the proposed amendments?
(4) and only incidentally .. this elected legislator seems to believe that "after they ... " presumably the "bad guys", which means we law-abiding citizens, "... shoot them ... " (one can only assume the "bullets" ensconced in the evil "High-Capacity Magazines, then "... there will be no more available...".

(5)  I am so weary.  This .. person .. obviously has assumed that ammunition comes pre-loaded in "magazines".   Is she so  invested in a disposable society that she honestly believes that once all the high-capacity magazines have been used, they cannot be reloaded?

I'm sorry.  The answer is, apparently, "YES!"

We are  at the mercy of people who are so without-a-clue that they honestly believe that "ammunition" is indistinguishable from "magazines".  No wonder that they mindlessly vote based upon what they THOUGHT they heard from the last person they talked to .. they are intellectually incapable of critical thought.

This is Colorado (democrat, of course!) Chief Minority Whip (she is obviously so PROUD of this!) Diane DeGrette speaking at the "Public Forum on Guns in America".

She is self-described as the "House Co-sponsor on the ban of high-capacity magazines". One would automatically assume that, as such, she has performed the necessary research to qualify as an expert on the issue.


Or perhaps not.

She is one of the people intrinsically deciding how the Second Amendment should be arbitrated in the American Congress.  And you wonder why it is so difficult for Second Amendment Supporters to find a voice in Congress?

SHE thinks that "bullets" and "magazines" are interchangeable; and if you ban "high capacity magazines", the the people will  eventually shoot them all up.  Problem solved!

Or, to quote her literally:

"These are ammunition .. they're bullets.  So, the people who have these now ... are going to shoot them. So if you ban them in the future, the number of   these high-capacity magazines is going to decrease dramatically over time, because the bullets will have been shot, and there won't be any more available."

...

The video ends with laughter, and we are deprived of the comments of Larimer County Sheriff  Justin Smith, who wanted the audience to know more about the issues.  Unfortunately, Sheriff Smith's comments have been so overwhelmed by the ceaselessness of Representative DelGette, nobody knows what he might have said to rescue the (entirely political) situation.  One assumes that it was a moot point.

I leave you with only this one, perhaps insignificant question:


Who elected this IDIOT!
____________________________________

Oh, yeah!

Well, the Denver POST, for one:

In an article entitled:

Inaccurate remarks on gun magazines put Rep. Diana DeGette under scrutiny

(I kid you not ... this is the fourteen-point headline which the DP has determined appropriate) ..

WASHINGTON — In confusing whether an ammunition magazine can be reloaded and the difference between that and a clip, Rep. Diana DeGette didn't do gun-control champions — including President Barack Obama — any favors last week.
DeGette, a Democrat from Denver, has been a pivotal leader at the federal level to strengthen the nation's gun laws since she entered Congress in the mid-1990s.
She has, at least three times, introduced legislation to ban high-capacity ammunition magazines, and she has signed on to a handful of other gun-control bills that have been introduced in the past year in the wake of the shootings at an Aurora movie theater and a Connecticut elementary school.
Yet last week at a public forum hosted by The Denver Post's editorial board, DeGette made one of the largest gaffes of her career on the very issue she purports to be so passionate about, and the comments came at one of the most politically inopportune times for her party.
Asked why banning ammunition magazines that hold more than 15 rounds would be effective in reducing gun violence, DeGette responded:
"These are ammunition, they're bullets, so the people who have those now, they're going to shoot them, so if you ban them in the future, the number of these high-capacity magazines is going to decrease dramatically over time because the bullets will have been shot and there won't be any more available."

I DO try to limit the length of my blogposts .. really I do.  But sometimes, it's impossible to follow t he entire thread without compromising my self-imposed limits.

This is one of those times  (okay, this is ALL of those times) . but it's just too RICH to ignore the squirming of the Liberal Press as they attempt to protect one of their own.

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Wait, it gets better:

Magazines, in almost every kind of weapon, can be reloaded.
Then, later in the day, in explaining the mistake, DeGette spokeswoman Juliet Johnson made another one.
"She simply misspoke in referring to 'magazines' when she should have referred to 'clips,' which cannot be reused because they don't have a feeding mechanism," Johnson said.
Clips, too, can be reloaded in almost every instance.
DeGette's comments went viral in social media, and her remarks were replayed on cable television and talk radio and posted on countless blogs throughout the country.

Please .. allow me to interpret:

Not only does the congresscritter have absolutely NO clue, but her staff, as well is entirely clueless.  Their attempt to ameliorate their boss's gaffe (I'm too nice to use the term "STUPIDITY" .. or perhaps not) did not 'make it better'; it only served to demonstrate once again that the Democratic Representative for Colorado is not only entirely clueless about the subject upon which she has spent years supporting .. but her staff, too, doesn't understand the issues.

Why, then, should we-the-people accept the administration of Democrats who don't understand the issues, but are still determined to impose their clueless ignorant unsupported-by-the facts VIEWS upon us?

Is it because there are so many granola-crunching clueless Liberal Democrats in Colorado that they will automatically gravitate around the "graboid" Representative only because she represents their own cluelessness?

Apparently .. yes!


People of Colorado, please pay attention:

(Michael Bane .. I know you understand this; ignore, because it obviously doesn't apply to you:)

This woman does NOT represent you.  She represents the repressive forces of Democratic America .. those who would grab your rights and dash them in the mud, or chew them up and spit them out .. not because the think it is the "right thing to do" but because they know now what they do.

This woman represents those clueless people who mindlessly deprive you of your rights, because they love their titles and the only way they know to protect their high office is to make laws .. they don't care what the laws are, they just know that they muse mindlessly make new laws so you think they are serving a purpose ... even if it is to your detriment.

To say that they are morons is a disservice to morons.  This lady is a low-value moron, who not only knows not what she does .. but she doesn't care.

Get RID of her!  She votes for the Moron element of the House of Representatives, and as such she not only undermines your freedoms, but she helps to undermine the freedoms of us all.

"If it only saves one voter" ....

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NOW do you believe it was a terrorist act?

I talked about this four .. is it now five? .. days ago.  The question about whether the Boston Marathon massacre was a "Terrorist Act".  (Our president, Barack Obama, was reluctant to so typify it on the day after .. did he think it was a natural gas explosion, such as the one in Texas on the same day?)

Since then I've been reluctant to voice my expectations, which was that the people responsible would fit a "Profile".

"Profile".  Nasty word, that' or so we are told by our Liberal friends (several of whom have since DIED at the hands of these profile-exempt young, male, Islamic terrorists).  Our country has had some 'unfortunate' experiences with Terrorists, who (in the 2001 Twin Towers/Airplane Hijacking, etc ad infinitum) denouement were determined to be young, male, Islamic and infected with an extreme version of Islamic influences teaching.

And I did not wish to suggest the same "profile" might fit these TERRORIST attackers on the 147th anniversary of the Boston Marathon, because I was certain that I might myself be "profiled" as a religious bigot.

The difference between them and me, of course, is that I'm not killing people.  They are.  And I don't hate people because of their lifestyle or their religion; they do.

Let me say that again:  I don't hate people because of their lifestyle or religion.

However,  perhaps I might be forgiven for a certain degree of resentment when young, male Islamic extremists who have been provided an open door to my native country return our national acceptance by killing people by indiscriminate bombing at public events.

Uncle Repudiates Nephew:

One of the more interesting side-shows was the video filmed a couple of days ago of the uncle of Dzhokar, who was only recently captured:

Outraged Uncle of Fugitive Bomber Has a Message for His Nephew - :

The outraged uncle of the Boston Marathon bombing suspect currently eluding authorities called on his nephew to surrender and to ask forgiveness from the victims of Monday’s blast. Ruslan Tsarni, of Montgomery Village, Md., told reporters outside his home that he last saw Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarneav in 2005 and said he was ashamed of their actions. “I say Dzhokhar, if you’re alive, turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness from the victims, from the injured,” a visibly angry Tsarni said, adding that he would have alerted authorities if he knew of his nephews’ alleged plan. “I respect this country, I love this country,” the 42-year-old attorney continued. “[The bombing] has nothing to do with Chechnya … He put a shame on our family, he put a shame on the entire Chechyan ethnicity.”

Oh, really?  the ethnicity of Chechya is so fragile that it is subject to shame by terrorist acts?

Uncle Ruslan, may I call your attention to a couple other examples of "Chechyan Ethnicity"?

2002: The Moscow Theater Siege:

The Moscow theatre hostage drama is a dramatic reminder that Chechen separatists are capable of desperate cruelty when they're up against a wall. Some 700 hostages remain captive in a large theater complex Friday, cowering for a third day under the guns of 30 or 40 Chechens — half of them reportedly women in headscarves; all of them reportedly wearing the explosive belts of the suicide bomber — who have threatening to blow the building unless Russian forces withdraw from Chechnya. The Chechens have reportedly set a deadline of 6am, Moscow time (10pm, EST) for their demands to be met, after which they'll begin executing their captives. They have described themselves as "smertniki" — those condemned to death, or kamikaze — and have killed at least one hostage who had tried to flee. Although Russian special forces have surrounded the building, they insist they wont storm it unless the Chechens start executing hostages. Negotiations aimed at a peaceful resolution continue.

Although President Vladimir Putin immediately linked the siege with the global war on terrorism, and charged that the action was planned in a "foreign terrorist center," its roots more likely lie in a long-established tradition among Chechen insurgents of mounting dramatic terror strikes aimed at tilting the balance of power back in their favor. The latest siege is reminiscent of the hostage drama at Budennovsk in 1995, when Chechen rebels led by Shamil Basayev seized a Russian hospital in order, he later said, to make Russians suffer the way Chechens had suffered. (emphasis added)  Although 166 hostages died when the very same Russian anti-terrorism unit that is currently surrounding the Moscow theater stormed the Buddenovsk hospital, Basayev and his men escaped. And soon afterwards, Moscow concluded an autonomy deal with Chechen leaders.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,383909,00.html#ixzz2R5A8AK00

(Apparently negotiating with Chechens is not necessarily conducive to peace, as they come back again and again no matter what the resolution of previous confrontations.)


Seven hundred hostages held "under the guns of .. Chechans".  In the end, the Russians ended the siege by releasing an 'incapacitating gas" which killed many of the terrorists AND many of the hostages.  Oops!

 If it saves just one child ....
If that is an insufficient example of Chechen Perfidy, consider ... oh, I don't know .. how about the Beslan School Massacre in 2004?

BESLAN, Russia, Sept. 4 -- Hundreds of children, their parents and teachers died in the bloody culmination of a 52-hour siege that began when heavily armed Muslim guerrillas stormed their school Wednesday and ended in an hours-long battle with Russian troops Friday.

The battered, burned and scorched survivors of Beslan's School No. 1, many of them half-naked children, filled the region's hospitals as troops continued to fight through the afternoon with guerrillas holed up inside the school. Twenty-seven of the fighters, described as Chechens, Russians, Ingush and Arabs, were killed, and at least three were captured, officials said.

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And you think that your nephew is "putting a shame on the whole Chechen  ethnicity"?  Seems to me, he's just following the footsteps of those who have gone before him.



Mister Tsarni, I do understand that you are a lawyer, and a peace loving citizen of the United States of America.  I 'get' that you love this country?  What's not to love (unless you're a Liberal, in which case you hate America because Americans are so mean to other people  .. especially if they come from a country where blowing up innocents is a legitimate "protest").



And I 'get' that you are appalled by the actions of your relatives .. young, male, Islamics from a country which is now notorious for exporting terrorists ... and you have called for a peaceful surrender by the last uncaptured and unrepentant (at the time of your statement; I'm sure your nephew is going to issue an apology and a call for peace between our peoples any time now) family member who has been -- um -- blowing up his fellow citizens?

What I do NOT 'get' is why your family has allowed its children to so stray from this peaceful, easy feeling which you publicly espouse?  Am I wrong in my understanding that the Chechen culture includes a patriarchal emphasis, and the family is responsible for every act that family members perform?

(Oh,  if it's any comfort to you,you are perhaps not NEARLY as complicit in these terrorists acts as those Liberals among us who have perhaps pointed your nephews toward other Liberals who encouraged them!)

No, I'm not accusing you, personally, of being complicit in the unseemly youthful high-jinks of your nephew(s).    But I look back to the long, fully documented history of (American Citizen) Muslim patriarchs who slaughter their daughters and nieces for wearing "unseemly" western garb, and I'm just wondering ...

... if y'all folks are so protective of the moral comport of your daughters and nieces, why are you not equally concerned about the righteous upbringing of your sons, and nephew?

I realize this is a confrontational thing for me to say, but I only ask because I'm wondering why your sons, neighbors and nephews seem so FUCKING hell-bent on killing my neighbors?

And if you are REALLY all that concerned, do you suppose that you could take some responsibility, and tell them to ... you know .... knock it off?

I'm a reasonable man, but is that too much to ask?

____________________________________________________________


(Uncle .. we KNEW who they were, from the moment that the bombs blew up.  We didn't know their names, and we didn't know exactly where they came from. But we KNEW.  Oh, we were too damned polite to point fingers while we couldn't name names,  but still we knew.

And you knew, too.  You were too frightened to target your own "ethnicity", but you surely expected .. was it such a shock when you learned that it came from your own family?  I truly hope it was;  I've had bad people in my own family, and when they did wrong I knew it but I didn't TELL anyone it was painfully obvious that it would come back to my family, eventually.  I hope I would have had the courage to publicly denounce them, as you did ... and I don't really meant to imply that you might have hesitated if there was any doubt at all of their origins.  I truly want to believe that you are a moral man who knows the difference between right and wrong, and who is willing to stand up before the world and denounce the wrong.

But still .. we knew.

Doesn't that hurt you, to know that so many of your culture have shown themselves to be uncivilized, uncaring, barbaric slaughterers of the innocent, and that you are judged by THEIR actions?

Maybe you can tell others of your friends and relatives that killing innocent people is just wrong.  I know we have done the same, but not recently and not arbitrarily.

Somebody has to take the first step.  I think you have deserved the right to be that person.)