Passing on the Honors ... credit where due

The link below describes a Real American Hero.
On this month of Honor to Veterans, perhaps we need to remember what a Real Hero looks like:
H/T: Irons in the Fire: People who have to pad their testicles:

In the history of the U.S. Navy only seven men have earned all of the “Big Three” valor awards: Medal of Honor, Navy Cross and Silver Star Medal. Six were World War II officers, including one aviator and four submarine commanders. The seventh was enlisted sailor James Elliott “Willy” Williams in Vietnam.

Yeah, what HE said!

Great Rant posted on Never Yet Melted.

It's one of those moments when you fall back in awe, saying to yourself:

"Gee ... I wish I had said that!"

I won't provide the link or the URL to the original youtube video.
The full credit (and hits-count) goes to the source:

https://neveryetmelted.com/2018/10/14/rejoinder-to-the-remoaners/

Well, why SHOULDN'T we treat Gun Violence as an "Epidemic"?

Many people (most often physicians) are suggesting that we can stop "Gun Violence" by treating it as an epidemic. here's just one example:

Can we stop the gun violence epidemic? Yes, by treating it as a health crisis | TheHill:

After each new episode in our nation’s worsening gun violence epidemic, the same two things happen: First, our screens and social media feeds are saturated with hauntingly familiar images — and then we’re told that it’s too soon to talk about gun laws. We need to break this cycle.

Obviously, this physician has decided that he's tired of seeing shooting victims in the Emergency room, and his solution is to "... talk about gun laws ...".    We can't blame him for wanting to grasp at straws.  But we can blame him for only seeing the obvious.

Let's talk about "gun laws".

We have thousands of  laws restricting access to guns, and yet the "Gun Violence Epidemic" continues.   By now, most rational people who can stand apart from their preconceptions will have accepted that if "gun laws" are the solution to gun violence ... they aren't working.  Which is curious, because we have more laws (national, regional, local, etc.) restricting access to guns than any other physical object.

This, in spite of the Second amendment which mandates that access to guns "... shall not be infringed"!

But this physician is suggesting the the "epidemic" of gun violence can be resolved by simply imposing more gun laws, which will not be obeyed by criminals..

So instead of talking about "gun violence", shouldn't we be talking about "criminals"?

Oh.   That's too hard. Therefore Physicians (and Politicians, and a lot of other groups) would rather talk about LAWS than to seek a true solution.

If we're to talk about "Gun Violence" as a National problem which must resolved, we should look at the cause of Gun Violence.

It isn't the ready availability of guns; millions of law- abiding Americans own guns and have never broken a law.  Where necessary in their home area, if guns must be registered they dutifully register their guns.    If certain kinds of guns are forbidden by law, they don't own those guns (except under special license ... still legally).

Summation:The problem with "Gun violence" isn't GUNS, it's VIOLENCE.

And we cannot resolve the problem of VIOLENCE by restricting access to guns; because that isn't working!

What's the solution?

This Gun Violence Thing isn't a legal problem, it's a societal problem. (Preaching to the choir much?)

Cities need to clean up their slums, provide jobs and support for their citizens who are floundering.
States need to keep track of  unemployment figures, and welfare figures, and unwed-mothers who need help to raise their children in a fatherless home where the only authority figure is a mom who has to work so many hours a day that the older children are responsible for raising their younger siblings.

You Can Help:
Examine the budgets for your municipality, county, state .. see how much each contributes to crime prevention, and welfare.   Compare that with the dollars spent on creating new industry, jobs.  Perhaps they can spend more on those areas (eg: tax breaks for companies who hire "at risk" citizens) compared to what they spend on crime prevention (police, prisons etc.).  You may find that your tax dollars are better spent on social programs than on prevention programs.

Talk to your representatives.  They won't lift a finger on an issue that isn't a "hot button", such as Crime and Gun Control.

You may just find that they occasionally listen to their constituents.

Salon Surprise

We can always expect from Salon (and her friends) the least reasonable interpretation of "Cause and Effect": she thinks that firearms violence stems from the "Right to Carry" laws ... which  encourages law-abiding citizens to exercise their right  to carry a firearm.

And she thinks that this is a HUGE surprise problem?

Right-to-carry laws lead to more violent crime: Isn’t that a huge surprise? - Salon.com:

One of the most contentious arguments within the larger gun control debate is over whether right-to-carry laws that make it legal for gun owners to carry loaded weapons in public, usually concealed on their person, make people safer. Gun rights advocates argue that packing heat is a prevention against crime and violence, invoking slogans like, "An armed society is a polite society." Gun control proponents, however, argue that a proliferation of loaded weapons is bound to lead to more violence, if only because people have easier access to the means to harm others.

Salon (and I speak of her as a person, for the sake of discussion) assumes that the proliferation of armed citizens is a factor in firearms violence.  I think she's an illiterate dork who doesn't understand the problems of inner-cities violence, where only the strong survive.
 (Or other violence, which needs no other excuse!)

Okay ... the most aggressive survive.

The fact is that people who legally carry a firearm (CHL, or "Concealed Handgun Licensees")  are NOT the progenitors of violence; they are, however, the persons who may be on the scene to counter illegal firearms aggression .... and they may be "there" before the police (who are often less-well trained than the CHL) arrive.

People who don't know about guns raise the question that, when cops show up at the scene of the shooting, they don't know which person with a gun is the "bad guy", and may end up shooting the "good guy".

This isn't a problem; the Good Guy is the one who lays down his firearm as soon as legitimate authority arrives. The good guys don't feel  that they are the equivalent of the police; they just  feel like the guy who plays his garden hose on a house fire until the firemen show up.

They're the Good Neighbor; they don't start the violence, they just want to stop it!
They are more than willing to yield the scene to (tardy) legitimate Law Enforcement Officers.

Good Neighbors just want all the 'bad stuff' to STOP!

Salon, and her friends who assume the worst of honest citizens, offer the suggestion that armed citizens are "A Problem".  

They're wrong

Good citizens care about their family, their friends and their neighbors.  The fact that they have made the exceedingly difficult decision to arm themselves isn't an indication that they are eager to shoot people; it just means that they have accepted the responsibility to protect themselves, their family, and (under the worst circumstances)  their neighbors. 

They may not even like their neighbors ... but are they still willing and able to protect them under the worst circumstances possible?
Think about it; do you like your neighbors enough to risk your life to save them?

And if you haven't decided to arm yourself to protect your family,
how comfortable are you when you decide to denigrate your neighbor because he or she is willing to lay down his or her life to protect your family?

"I Fought The Law, and The Law Won"

Good for you, Judge Benitez; at least one high court officer understands his obligation to support the Constitution!

(The Judge denied California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom's petition for a magazine ban.)

Gavin Newsom Asks Court to Allow 'High Capacity' Magazine Ban: Breitbart

Note that Newsom’s claim contains an admission that the ban will not stop “high-fatality” attacks altogether. Rather, it is yet another in a long list of California controls that is promulgated in the name of safety, only to result in diminished freedom. The loss of freedom would result from the fact that only law-abiding citizens would follow a “high capacity” magazine ban, like any gun law, and law-abiding citizens are the very people who are not misusing “high capacity” magazines to begin with. This was not lost on 

note again:
(Judge Benitez) ... blocked the ban because its implementation would have meant “hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of otherwise law-abiding citizens [would] have an untenable choice: become an outlaw or dispossess one’s self of lawfully acquired property.”

Compare that decision to this story (see below).

Victory attained by Violence ... is momentary

Random Quotes - The Quotations Page:

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary. 


Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948), 'Satyagraha Leaflet No. 13,' May 3, 1919

Some Indians thought Gandhi was too accommodating. Among them was Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist, who assassinated Gandhi on 30 January 1948 by firing three bullets into his chest,

Some  moments of violence are more important than others;

 it rather depends on your perspective.

TRUE VALOR!

I don't want to talk about fake history.  ... although Shakespeare is a master ..
.
 Shakespeare's Saint Crispin Days Speech from Henry V.
    And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
    Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
    And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
    That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day

But I don't want to talk about an imaginary "Band of Brothers", either, seem  they ever so real.

I want to talk about a real man, an true American Hero, a man who is unknown today:

I want to talk about a man who is the epitome of True Valor: Green Beret MSG Roy Benavidez.

Actually, I want you to hear his 1991 speech.   You  will wonder if you are among those ...... gentlemen in England 

(I'm linking to the original SPECTATOR article because it provides some .. background to what I think you would be better served to see.The author of the article deserves the presentation although his introduction is buried deep in the comments section of a ... not entirely noteworthy SPECTATOR Article:

To clear my mind of this article I have gone back to my all time favorite Medal of Honor recipient now on Youtube. Green Beret MSG Roy Benavidez. He gives incredible speeches and if you have time watch-if limited goto the 5min mark and listen to his remarks. Perfect for this Memorial Day and will clear your mind of this article.

To make it easier for you to follow the thread here is the speech: (25 minutes)





I know you will be inspired. I was there, if not then, and I am inspired.

H/T: Spectator

The Three Things I Detest

I'm normally an easy-going kind of guy, but when Election Season comes about I turn into a raving lunatic!

The three things I hate about America are, in order:

1. Politics
2. Politicians
3. Elections

Here's why:

POLITICS:

The thing about Politics is that it's not about keeping a nation (state/county/city) endowed with leaders who will best serve the electorate.   It's about finding a way to cajole honest folks into supporting some other guy in who doesn't have the same priorities as I do, but they don't look at the things which are important to me; they look at the things that will get some totally incompetent Willy Loman elected because he has a fresh-blocked hat and a shine on his shoes.

POLITICIANS:

A good politician isn't one who will look out for your best interests; he's the guy that can get elected.
Never mind if he is morally suspect or dumb as a box of rocks, he's got charisma and doesn't pick his nose in public (or at least, not when the cameras are on him).

A "Good Politician" is a snake-oil salesman who keeps his mistress hidden, and his wife accepts his peccadilloes because she might end up The First Lady of Ward 7.   If he is on the graft, he doesn't go out and buy a fancy car the day after he gets "The Envelope" (stuffed full of case, courtesy of his sponsors).  This allows him to vote for the causes of his 'contributors' with a free conscience.

Any man who runs for election to public office must have an ulterior motive.  It may be personal vanity, or the wish to be liked; it may be the power of the position; it may be because he just can't make it in private industry (but he looks and talks "real good!").

Or it might be because he has done so well in his career, this is the next step up on the ladder of success.

The worst of the candidates are those who have a "Vision".  You want to steer clear of these evangelists, because their vision is probably not yours.

ELECTIONS:

This is the very worst part.  Politicians pander to private parties.  You might want to write that down.
No matter what they say (it's all a lie), their sole goal is to get elected to high public office.  The day of "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" is over.  Dead as Chivalry.   Serious as a Heart Attack. Pick your poison, as sure as hell, sooner or later your elected official will turn out to be a Felon.

Now we are involved in a Presidential Election which has selected (as the primary candidates on each side) The Creep and The Crook.

This is the best America has to offer?

 We are obliged to choose between two candidates, neither of which an honest, self-respecting person would invite to dinner in their home?

The American political process was designed to allow our citizens to choose between The Best of The Best; but in a few days we will have to choose between The Least Horrible of the Awful.

Frankly, I'm relying on Scott Adams for political guidance.

The Crook Versus the Monster | Scott Adams' Blog:

The biggest illusion this election is that we think the people on the other side can’t see the warts on their own candidate. But I think they do. Clinton supporters know she is crooked, but I think they assume it is a normal degree of crookedness for an American politician. Americans assume that even the “good” politicians are trading favors and breaking every rule that is inconvenient to them. I’ve never heard a Clinton supporter defend Clinton as being pure and honest. Her supporters like her despite her crookedness.

 Likewise, Trump supporters know what they are getting. They know he’s offensive. They know he’s under-informed on policies. They know he pays as little in taxes as possible. They know he uses bankruptcy laws when needed. They know he ignores facts that are inconvenient to his message. They just don’t care. They want to push the monster into Washington D.C., close the door, and let him break everything that needs to be broken. Demolition is usually the first step of building something new. And Trump also knows how to build things when he isn’t in monster mode.

This isn't "The Answer", but at least it's one viewpoint which has attempted to provide a quick summary of our National Quandry.

And Scott Adams is not among the things I detest.
Perhaps it's because I'm a Dilbert at heart.

Tom Arnold's Gun Control Essay Presents a Passionate Argument

Tom Arnold's Gun Control Essay Presents a Passionate Argument | Hollywood Reporter:

 Because I've had personal demons, I worried about those who would come back as heroes to everyone but themselves, and now might find themselves alone, without their team, sitting in their basement with their drugs and their guns.

Tom, bless you for your concerns.  But I think that you might pay attention to the fact that since you are a "name", people will listen to your words.  Most of whom are not .. excuse the word .. suicidal.

That may be what you want ... not the suicides; the discretion.  But what happens is that a lot of perfectly sane people who own firearms might be tarred by the same brush.
(Sorry: feel remorse and consider suicide as a viable alternative to live.)

I know you're a big hollywood star, and I've seen both of your movies (one of them had AHNOLD in it, I can't recall the other movie right off-hand) and you were married to that revered woman celebrity ... the one with the mouth?  Yeah, that one.  Rosanne?  (Correct me if I'm wrong, sorry.)

Anyway, you might consider the effect your words have on the millions of people who are responsible gun owners.   Their experiences may not quite parallel yours:

My nephew Spencer was a sweet boy, but he was small, and I'm sure he was picked on. He was kicked out of the Army after attempting suicide. He was diagnosed as chronically depressed and unsafe around weapons. Yet he was able to get a concealed weapon permit from the state of Iowa and buy five guns. Like me, Spencer was a substance abuser. He refused my offer for help with that as well as his mental illness, so I was very concerned. Last fall, when I saw on Facebook that he had joined a crazy, racist, neo-Nazi (I'm Jewish, as is my mom) gun group and videotaped himself showing off, drunkenly shooting his assault rifle and calling President Obama the N-word, I headed to the airport to go see him.

Tom ... can I call you Tom?  I don't want to presume on you, but you're being quoted in the press as an expert on firearms, and I honestly regret your loss of a beloved nephew due to suicide.  I know that's hard to deal with; I've had friends and family who were also victims of firearms violence.

Well, actually, I'm thinking mostly about the 18 year old kid who was killed by a booby trap in VietNam, in 1969.  Not the same as suicide, I know, but the feeling of loss is almost comparable, except my kid died thinking he was fighting for his country, and your nephew (obviously closer, personally, to you than this kid in my platoon) was morbidly depressed because ... ah .. well, I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure he was experiencing some tough-to-handle things, unlike my happy-go-lucky friend in ... you  know ... the army?

So just because I was in the army, and 'over there', doesn't mean that I don't feel your pain.  It's hard to lose a loved one, especially someone who was such a close relative as a nephew.

Anyway, even though my friend wasn't a substance abuser, he DID have firearms.  (Not that it did him much good, but that's another story.  I carried his M16 and his web gear back to base camp, after his body was picked up by the helicopter.)   I don't think we can label him an "expert on firearms", although he did carry an AR16 for the rest of his life.  Which ended at age 19.

I don't think my friend called the president an "n-word", but that was a different decade and a different president; Nixon?   Is that an "N-word"?  Whatever, my friend gave his life for his country, not for his president.

Sorry; it's been a lot of years, and sometimes I get confused about just which president sent us to the beautiful, balmy country of South Vietnam.  It was ONE of those guys, probably a fucking Republican (and you know how THEY are).

Or was it Kennedy?  Or Johnson.   Never mind, I kind of zone out from time to time.

Where was I?
Oh yeah, now I remember.

Tom, I'm sorry your nephew blew his brains out.  I've seen it, it's not a pretty sight.

So please accept my most sincere  ... um ... condolences for your personal loss.  Nobody should have to suffer as you obviously have, at the loss of your son.

Oh, no ... sorry .. NEPHEW!   (Knuckling my head, why can't I get that straight?)

Sorry for your lose Tom.  Truly.  People think that Celebrities shouldn't be like real people and feel pain at the loss of a loved one.

There is no shame in suicide.  Happens to the best of people.

Well, you already know that.

That IS a pistol in my pocket, AND I'm happy to see you

Court: Man wrongfully terminated for having gun in vehicle at work:

A unanimous three-judge panel found on Monday that a Mississippi man could sue his former employer after being fired for keeping a gun in a locked vehicle on the job site.

A man whose employer discovered that he had a (legal) firearm in his parked car while at work has sued, and won, in protest for illegally being fired 'for cause'.

The court accepted that he had a gun in his car, but that wasn't grounds for termination.  
The Corporate Policy was illegal ... not the gun in the car.

I just love a story with a happy ending.

(Thanks to Mae West for a great line.)

Oh, this is SO lame!

Benghazi Vet Special Ops Will Quit If Clinton Is Elected | The Daily Caller:

 The best and brightest of the U.S. military and special operations community will quit if Hillary Clinton gets elected president, according to Benghazi survivor and former CIA operative John “Tig” Tiegen.

Am I the only one who remembers all of the Liberal movie stars who threatened to leave America if George W. Bush was elected president?
(They didn't ... and you won't; so you have just put yourself in a very small, very 'special' group of people who deserve no respect.)

I can't believe that now we have (supposedly adult) Conservatives OPERATORS doing the "WAA WAA I'M A BIG BABY WAA WAA" dance.

I guess that the 'operators' now consider themselves the liminaries of the Conservative movement, much as the Movie Stars slide into the same slot for the Libearls.

There is a great silence in muddville tonight, as our stone-cold heroes reveal their feet of clay.

This makes the "Black Socks Scandal" look like a walk in the park.

Mighty Casey Has Struck Out.

I have NO respect for military personnel who let petty political crap dissuade them from their sworn duty.  If you're among those "best and brightest" who don't have the intestinal fortitude to "shut up and soldier" when the politics go against you, then ... go ahead.  Quit.   We don't need you.

If you're not willing to abide your sworn oath to defend your country against " ... all enemies, foreign and domestic ..."  we don't need you.

If you would leave your wounded buddy on the field, while you retreat, then they don't need you.

If you have so little devotion to duty, and you were in my platoon, I would have put you on point.
You have no greater value to your fellow soldiers than to trip a booby-trap ("IED" in current parlance) which might otherwise have taken out a better man.

Here's a very special Military Acronym which just suits Quiters:    FOAD!

Oh, and by the way: you have just made millions of Liberal Wimps feel privileged to look DOWN on you.  And you deserve their condescension.

They are BETTER than you; at least they know they are cowards.

BACKGROUND:

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.)

Oh, this is GREAT Police Work!

Cops deploy StingRay anti-terror tech against $50 chicken-wing thief • The Register:

Annapolis police never found the thief but he represented just one of 17 occasions on which the city of 40,000 people used the device in 2011. Its use is far more prevalent in larger cities.
,,,
. New York City has used its StingRay more than 1,000 times since 2008.

There's a great meme which is never spoken of:

"If you have a tool, you will use it, even if you don't need it!"

(I just made it up.  Like it?)

Okay, here's a more familiar one:

"If you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail."

I'm all for solving crime, and all that.
What I'm not all for is creating intrusive devices and techniques which intrude on our Constitutional "Right To Privacy" (I made that up, too)

All kidding aside, I'm concerned about the increasing encroachment of governments on the privacy rights of their individual citizens.

THIS IS HAUNTINGLY FAMILIAR!

Geezer Central

Who says Old Pharts can't handle a gun?

[HT: Never Yet Melted]

(Thanks to CLAIR for providing links to the oh-so-smarmy  ORIGINAL ARTICLE)

None Of The Above

I'm so SICK that there are no dominant political parties in America who have been able to field a candidate which doesn't make me want to hurl.

Can't we just vote for "None of the Above" and, as in video games and computers, just ...
REBOOT?

LAPD: "When seconds count, police are only hours away"

Only On 2: LAPD Officers Say More Patrol Needed In Times Of Emergency  CBS Los Angeles: LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) —

 Officers with the LAPD tell CBS2 that in the event of an emergency, you might have a long wait. It’s a story that is Only On 2. CBS2’s Randy Paige reports that many officers believe there aren’t enough of them to go around — especially in an emergency. “The citizens need to know they need to be able to protect themselves because if they call 911, we can’t guarantee we’re going to get there in time to help you,” says Police Protective League President Jamie McBride....

(emphasis added)

This is particularly poignant considering that California politicians have spent the last 20 years making sure that their citizens have limited access to firearms.

Now the police are admitting publically that they can't protect the public?

This comes as no surprise to anyone except for the elected officials ... many of whom have armed bodyguards, so it's not THEIR problem!

Now that the police have admitted that their job is to pick up the bodies and not much else, what is the Average Citizen of California to do?

Well, the first step might be to change their political affiliation to "Republican", because the Democrats who run the state aren't don't much to protect their constituents ... and the police are admittedly over-extended.

Not that I have much room to talk; I live in Oregon,  I haven't voted for a Democrat for 30 years, but you know how it is when the major population densities are all in 'the big cities' where the welfare state rules the geopolitical state.

The Fighting Representative

Rep. Greg Walden addresses U.S. House on situation in Oregon and the West | Oath Keepers: 

(Actually, I almost blew this off because it's a 24 minute you-tube political video and I hate that  ... stuff.)

But it's a slow night, so I started to watch it just to see what a small-town politico from a rural district (district 2 in Oregon, which includes my home town in Pendleton ... an area larger than a couple of states!) might have to say.

What I FOUND was an impassioned speech which not only addressed Citizens' Rights, but abuses of power on a national level.

Who knew that the local boy could make good?
Representative Walden champions the rule of reasonable logic 

Worthwhile quotes:

• "This is a government which has gone too far, for too long."
• "How do you have respect for a government which doesn't respect you?"
• "What possible good will come out of bankrupting a grandmother?"
• "We have to listen to the People."
• "Fighting a war ... and dying."

Yes, I still detest politicians .. blood-sucking slugs on the testicles of the voters.

But this speech, by this guy?  I'm thinking MAYBE I should move back to Pendleton so I can vote for him.

It has been a long time since I've actually appreciated a politician.

Maybe there's a few of the "keepers" left.

(I'm not going to embed the speech here; Oathkeepers found it, they deserve the traffic.  And no, I'm not a fan of Oathkeepers, but they have performed a valuable service in bringing this issue to the public attention.)


[H/T: The War On Guns]

"Penalties that don't match the values of the City of Chicago"

Chicago Is Currently Experiencing a 20 Percent Increase in Homicides | Complex:
(September 29, 2015)

" .... everybody (who) woke up this morning, or heard it last night, felt a pain of anguish, and it’s time that our criminal justice system and the laws as it relates to access to guns and the penalties for using 'em reflect the values of the people of the city of Chicago."

(... and ..)

At least 2,300 people have been shot in Chicago this year alone, according to the Chicago Tribune. According to their analysis, that's roughly 400 more incidents than during the same period in 2014. Homicides are currently up 21 percent in 2015, with the past two weekends pointing to a noticeable increase in gun-related violence.

The Mayor of Chicago is saying that ... private ownership of firearms is almost entirely illegal in Chicago, and yet there are too many guns?  And the rate of  SIC ("Shot In Chicago" rate) is too high?

On the contrary; I would say that this grim statistic EXACTLY "... reflect(s) the values of the people of the City of Chicago..."

I realize this is a tired bromide that I've been touting for YEARS, but I'll say it again:

The SIC in Chicago is irrationally high.

The democratic leadership (pusillanimous mayors) of Chicago have historically held its citizens in an iron fist which denies them the right to defend themselves, by dint of their draconian laws against private ownership of firearms.  As a consequence, honest citizens pose no threat to armed gang-bangers who roam the streets at will.   The police in Chicago doubtless includes many honest cops who only want to clean up the town ... but they can't do it by themselves.

Generations of Chicago Mayors have ensured the victim-hood of their constituents by denying the right to self-defense.  (Last count; there was only ONE gun shop within the city limits, and rumor has it that that business has been closed due to excessive municipal regulations.)

Nobody is working toward making the citizenry of Chicago self-supportive,
At the same time, nobody (read: the office of the mayor and everyone under his control) has recognized that their police force is able to combat the crime-in-the-streets culture which has been promulgated because gang-bangers KNOW that when they fire a shot ... nobody in the streets will be defending themselves, except the other gang-bangers.

The solution is so obvious, the only reason it has not been implemented is that the politicians want a population of dependent serfs to rule, rather than a population of citizens to cherish.

There's a wall of gun-laws between honest citizens and their right to defend themselves.  And yet the Mayor continues to whine about 'statistics' (and demand even more restrictive gun-control laws) rather than to allow honest citizens to defend themselves.

As the saying goes:

"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem".

Mister Mayor, you are the problem.

Please either do your job, or do the right thing by exiting your office so an honest officer can lead,

Honest, Officer, I thought that hooker was my grand-daughter!

Prosecutor Gives 87-Year-Old Man a Pass: (NEWSER) –
(September 02, 2015) in Michigan ... Cops have a Heart

An 87 year old Michigan man was busted for soliciting prostitution last June.

The cops let him go, on the grounds that he had ".. lived 87 years without so much as a blot on his criminal record."

Frankly, if a man at 87 years is out trolling for  *(ahem)* feminine companionship, I think they ought to give him a standing ovation.

Oh.

Maybe that's what he was looking for from the hooker.

We're from the Government, and we'll be your Crash-Test Dummies for today

Inspector General report says Secret Service agents 'likely' alcohol-impaired in March incident | Fox News:

A report by the Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General has concluded that two senior Secret Service agents were "more likely than not" impaired by alcohol when they drove an official car through a secure area outside the White House this past March.

And:

No field sobriety tests were given that night and both men were allowed to drive their government vehicles home from the White House.

Sounds like poor judgement is the standard in the White House.