Comparative Acceptance in Baghdad By The Bay

Have I got this right?

In the place where they won't jail a wetback for using a stolen pistol to murder a woman, but they won't allow anyone to sell firearms or ammunition, and they won't turn anyone in for being in the country illegally ... a mob of sunbathers (not that they get sun more than 10 times a year) now beats a man half to death because he's ogling someone's GIRLFRIEND?

Man’s roaming eyes spark mob beat down in SF’s Dolores Park - SFGate:

A mob beat up a man in San Francisco’s Dolores Park for looking at the girlfriend of one of his attackers, police said Thursday. ...The mob then repeatedly kicked him while he was on the ground, police said. 

Can you say "Cognative Disonance", Children?

(I knew you couldn't.)

"Submit or Die": Trial Of The Century

"Trial of the Century" blog writes to demonstrate how some persons may willingly subvert the verbiage of the Second Amendment to 'prove' that it promotes Gun Violence.   Here's part of his reasoned counter to the original "THE NATION" article (which writing he terms "rampant historical revisionism") by Joshua Holland:

Submit or Die |:

On its face this argument is kind of breathtaking, because it implicitly assumes that a maniac murdering a bunch of cops is tantamount to “a heavily armed populace” taking action against “a tyrannical government running amok.” That the two are not in the slightest equivalent never seemed to have crossed Joshua Holland’s mind—he seems to be able to draw no meaningful distinction between Dallas last week and Massachusetts in 1775, between Michah Johnson on the one hand and Henry Knox on the other. Can a writer for a popular magazine—even a writer for the Nation—be so terminally clueless? 

 But maybe this isn’t simply an ahistorical [sic] gaffe: maybe liberals really are incapable of divining the difference between a psychopathic mass shooting and a rebellion against tyranny. Maybe the liberal political impulse has become so degraded that, as far as progressives are concerned, there is no situation—none at all—in which one can ever  be justified in rebelling against any authority anywhere, no matter how tyrannical the authority is, no matter how justified the case for rebellion may be. It’s all illicit, all forbidden not merely by statute but by moral law: government is so final an arbiter of morality and rightness that you can’t ever fight it for any reason, under any circumstances.

You may find that reading the whole thing  is a worthwhile use of your time.

I did.  I read both articles.

I found points with which I am inclined to agree in both articles.

However, I think the point made in 'submit or die' (which, again, is not the WHOLE THOUGHT) deserves to be emphasized, bearing in mind that the quoted verb it doesn't address the whole of the HOLLAND article.

It's a complex issue; the opinions will, of necessity, be equally complex.

NO PLANTS FOR LAWYERS!

Georgia police: Chattanooga attorney shot after breaking into elderly couple's house, throwing plants at them | Times Free Press:

Anybody want to bet me that the lawyer is NOT a Democrat?

Okay, this is a legitimate argument for Plant Control!

(Alternate title:  "Just Because You Say His Gun Isn't Loaded Doesn't Make It So!")

No Guns for Women?

"The risk of death for women increases by 500 percent when a gun is present in domestic violence, even if the woman got the gun for her own safety."

True, if she's not the one with the gun!


I don't know what "Elite Daily" is, but it certainly presents the "elitist" message clearly.

In reponse to the Dana Loesch video message which encourages women in danger to prepare to protect themselves  (ie: "gun-empowered women can fight back"), the elitists seem to ignore the threat to defensless people because it's just .... awful ... to think women might  feel it's necessary to defend themselves.   There are many emotional and physical factors which FORCE women to stay in abusive relationships ... nobody is saying those women must user force to resist force; only that this may be a viable alternative to deadly threats.


This Bizarre New NRA Ad Encourages Women To Murder Rapists And Abusers:

Real empowerment for me looks like men who are empowered to know they don’t need to defend their masculinity and assert their power through violence. It looks like men who understand consent. It looks like men who honor and value both my safety and the safety of other women.

The NRA wants you to think that rapists are strangers in alleys. But three out of four victims of sexual violence are attacked by someone they know, as New York magazine points out.

The NRA wants you to think that domestic abuse can be easily solved by a gun. There are many emotional and physical factors that contribute to why women stay in abusive relationships. Having a gun isn’t a solution.

As New York magazine points out again, having a gun while in an abusive relationship could also threaten your own safety. The risk of death for women increases by 500 percent when a gun is present in domestic violence, even if the woman got the gun for her own safety.

There are many things you can say to potential attackers. “Go ahead” shouldn’t be one of them.

I'm sorry, Elite Magazine, but you got the quote wrong:



There are "many emotional and physical factors" which FORCE women to stay in abusive relationships ... nobody is saying those women must user force to resist force; only that this may be a viable alternative to deadly threats.

Oh, I didn't want to put the whole 90 minute movie "The Burning Bed" up here, but please be aware that this is also another option for abused women in fear of their life.

That is, for women who don't live in your idealistic dream world, you .... elitists.

No Guns For Kids?

No guns for kids?

Latest Gun Control Legislation Takes Aim at Children, and Reveals a Sinister Truth – Bearing Arms:
Posted at 3:05 pm on July 13, 2016 by Jenn Jacques

Senator Edward J. Markey and Congressman Ruben Gallego introduced new legislation that claims will “ensure that powerful, military-style weapons don’t end up in the hands of children”. The Help End Assault Rifle Tragedies (HEART) Act of 2016 as announced by Markey and Gallego claims to protect children by prohibiting anyone under the age of 16 from possessing or firing machine guns and assault weapons, specifying that the law would extend to gun shows and shooting ranges. However, the bill clearly aims to shut down all youth shooting sports and young hunters’ ability to participate in any activity that uses guns.

[emphasis added]
So, how am I going to teach my grandchildren how to shoot?

Brit: "A Policeman's Lot Is Not A Happy One!"

I Was A Cop In A Country With No Guns: 6 Startling Truths:

Over the first eight months of 2015, American police killed 776 people, while British police killed exactly one. American police are eight times as likely to kill a citizen, and ten times as likely to die on the job, as their essentially unarmed British counterparts. We wanted to get an idea of just why this was, so we spoke to Charley Clark, who spent nearly a decade as a police constable and a detective constable in Hackney, one of the most deprived and dangerous boroughs in London. Naturally, as we were writing about how much safer the UK is with its lack of guns, despite having a commensurate percentage of unstable potential criminals, this happened. But the fact that the attacker is alive to face trial is a testament to the police involved and to how long it takes Trojan, the British Police armed response teams, to arrive. The suspect was armed -- the arresting officers were not. Welcome to policing, British-style.

(Actually ... I posted this because this gentleman's story was both amusing and well written; if you have to go up against bad boys with nothing than an empty pocket and a smile, it seems to be good tactics to make the other bloke smaile as well.)


(sigh)

Philando Castile shooting

All I want to know is what was in the pocket.  Was it a Wallet, a Concealed Handgun License, a Driver's License, or a handgun?

Why in the HELL has the MSM not mentioned this in the past WEEK when they have printed thousands of words about it?

Minnesota officer reacted to gun, not race, attorney says:

The Minnesota police officer who fatally shot a black man in a Minneapolis suburb earlier this week spoke out through his attorney Saturday saying that the shooting had nothing to do with race. The officer, identified as Jeronimo Yanez, shot and killed Philando Castile Wednesday during a routine traffic stop. Castile and his fiance, Diamond “Lavish” Reynolds, were pulled over for an alleged busted taillight. Authorities told the Associated Press that Yanez approached the vehicle from the driver’s side while his partner, Officer Joseph Kauser, came around the passenger side. Yanez eventually opened fire, striking Castile multiple times. Minnesota attorney Thomas Kelly was mum on the exact reason why Yanez shot Castile, simply telling AP the Latino officer reacted to “the presence of that gun and the display of that gun.” Kelly went on to say that the officer, who was placed on administrative leave after the event, is distraught and saddened. The story made headline news after Reynolds live streamed the aftermath of the shooting on social media site Facebook. In the video, Reynolds narrates the scene, stating that the officer shot her fiance as he was reaching for his wallet.

Nice Try: No Cigar!

John McClaughry (Ethan Allen Institute) offers some thoughts about ...
McClaughry: Gun Control Ideas that Won’t Work :Times Argus Online:

" The difficulty the Democrats face is that, stripped of the emotion and politically driven posturing, their legislative demands either flagrantly violate the Constitutional rights of law abiding citizens, or are hopelessly ineffective and unenforceable against would-be terrorists and mass murderers."

There's nothing really 'new' about this: you've read it a hundred times and, if you're a legitimate firearms owner, you've thought it a thousand times.

 J.D. Tuccille, writing at Reason.com, points out that a California law to register “assault rifles” (sic) in 1990 resulted in 7,000 registrations, out of an estimated 300,000 semiautomatic rifles in private hands. In New Jersey, out of more than 100,000 firearms affected, a similar law brought in 947 people who were target shooters, 888 who rendered their guns inoperable, and four who surrendered them to the police.

Simply stated, people who own guns Will Not Comply with unconstitutional 'firearms control laws'.   More: historically, they "have not complied" with such laws.

Liberals and other "Gun Control Advocates" (eg: "Gun Grabbers") are grabbing at straws when they think to undermine the Second Amendment rights of Americans.

It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations. Barack Obama

These people simply do not understand the determination of Americans to demand the that their constitional rights be not only accepted, but revered!  

The Constitutional Amendments were reluctantaly accepted by The Founding Fathers; at the time, they thought that the Declaration of Independence and the Constition were suffecient: they did not think that the Individual Rights needed to be enumerated, but they were outvoted by those who thought that there needed to be some commentary to specifically point out the 'minutia' which exemplified the constitution.

Thus, the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the constitution), which at the time were thought to be almost parenthetical.

After all, they had already made the point of "Don't Tread On Me".  What else needed to be said .. it was obvious!

Thankfully, they took the time to enumerate the issues which were protected for the people 
(EVERYTHING was denied to The State, except for specific duties and powers .. just in case).

And so, we find ourselves engaged in a debate about what each amendment means.

It was not meant to be so complicated;  what's so hard to understand about "SHALL NOT BE ABRIDGED"?

It's so much simpler to say "NO!  UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!" than it is to say "Well, sometimes ... " and go into great detail about exceptions.

There are no exceptions to the Second Amendment.  Even the NSA exceptions are unconstitional, even though nobody cares/dares to argue against it. 

Americans gave up the right to own full-automatic guns.

Then they gave up the right to own .... well, it's a long litany of rights which firearms owners have allowed to be restricted, and what have we received in return?

Nothing.  Someday, it would be nice if the Gun Grabbers among us would seem to be willing to concede that the Second Amendment had some justification, some meaning.  

But unless we fight for it, that will never happen.   Unless we just fall back on the "Will Not Comply" thingie.  And then what well 'they' do about it?  Raid our homes and confiscate our legally owned firearms?

We might as well have Full Automatic guns;  eventually, everything we own will be conflated as 'as dangerous'.

Officer Target

Minnesota officer reacted to gun, not race, attorney says:

The Minnesota police officer who fatally shot a black man in a Minneapolis suburb earlier this week spoke out through his attorney Saturday saying that the shooting had nothing to do with race. The officer, identified as Jeronimo Yanez, shot and killed Philando Castile Wednesday during a routine traffic stop. Castile and his fiance, Diamond “Lavish” Reynolds, were pulled over for an alleged busted taillight. Authorities told the Associated Press that Yanez approached the vehicle from the driver’s side while his partner, Officer Joseph Kauser, came around the passenger side. Yanez eventually opened fire, striking Castile multiple times.

There are a LOT of things wrong with this story, and I can't believe that either the officer or the driver had so little sense of responsibility that it had to end in the death of the driver.

Ignoring the rumors about the driver, there are ways to handle a normal traffic stop which will help prevent a tragedy.

A lot of people have stories, and questions, about being pulled over during a routine traffic stop when they are armed.  I understand their concerns.   Most people with CHL aren't really conversant with the best way to deal with police; perhaps my own experiences can provide a exemplar.

Antigun Missouri Senator WALKS!

It must be nice to be SPECIAL!

Guilty Conscience?

State lawyer wants legislators’ addresses removed from pro-gun blog | The Sacramento Bee:

Warning of “a grave risk” to elected officials, the California Legislature’s legal arm has asked the blog platform WordPress to take down a post listing the addresses of lawmakers who supported gun control legislation. Gov. Jerry Brown on July 1 signed several gun control measures, fortifying California’s already strong gun restrictions over the objections of those who saw the bills eroding Second Amendment rights. Among other things, the new laws will require background checks to purchase ammunition, broaden the definition of illegal assault weapons, outlaw possession of high-capacity magazines and limit gun lending.

Should legislators, at any level, be held accountable for the laws they adjudicate?

That's the question being asked of the California State Assembly in regards to the recent draconian anti-gun laws they have proposed

Senators should listen to their people BEFORE they cast their votes.

Obviously, the second thoughts of the Elected Officials are driven by their concern that violance might be the result of their legislative efforts.

That reflects poorly on their trust in the citizens of their state.   Do they not trust their constituents?
Why not?   Don't they think they have properly protected the rights of the people who elected them?

The people who elected them, trusted THEM to represent the interests of the people.

Now, these same ligislators want to preserve their anonymity.

One might be wary of politicians who don't want their constituents to know where they live.

If they don't trust the people who voted them into office, why should those voters trust them?