It's Not Guns ... It's Men!

It's not guns, it's men. 

(Do not say "WHEW!" yet)


The Greenfield (MA) Recorder has an opinion article by Rob Okun which announces that the problem with violence in America might not be guns; he posits that the problem is Men.

My Turn: Men, we can, and should, do better:

... there’s a common denominator among all of the shooters that we in the pro-feminist men’s movement are blue in the face from shouting from the rooftops for decades: They’re all men.

Well, he may have a point there.  I don't know anything about the "Pro-feminist men's movement", and I haven't seen a whole lot of blue-faced guys at pistol matches for the past .. oh, I don't know ... THIRTY YEARS! 

But he may still have a point.
After all, how many mass shootings are committed by women?

Zero?  (Ignoring that the person who provided guns for the Colorado school shootings was a woman.   Women as enablers?  Who knew?)

(Almost everyone!)

I suppose it's legitimate to posit that women are more likely to be "enablers" than killers in the Pro-feminist Men's Murder Class (Dylan, et al).  Which may not be the author's point, but it's what I get from his writing.  Still,  I'm a bit concerned about this one tiny point he makes:

 It’s time for Congress to fund the Centers for Disease Control to conduct a study of how boys are socialized, starting with preschoolers. I’ve proposed this to an aide to Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal. Please, senator, introduce the legislation. 

Ouch!

Given that the CDC has been partially defunded because of their biased political stance against firearms,  this is like throwing baby chicks to the alligators;  gobble gobble gobble.   Let us ignore that the CDC lost a TON of funding from the federal coffers a decade or two ago because of their obvious anti-2nd Amendment bias.  The Namby Boys still haven't forgiven the NRA for that.

 What else? The NRA considers most men tacit supporters, and unless they hear otherwise, they have us right where they want us — silent,

Tacit?   Us?

I'm not sure what men are "tacit supporters" of.   I had to look it up.  Most men I know aren't "tacit" supporters of anything;   They are either indifferent, against, or balls-to-the-wall for it.   Life's too short to be "tacit".   And as for the NRA, they either hate it or they pay their annual dues.

There's no crying in baseball, and there's no "tacit" in guns.

Tacit this, Robie.

Bottle Control

N.Y. liquor store owner beaten to death with wine bottle in heist - NY Daily News:

A Rochester liquor store owner was beaten to death with a wine bottle during a heist that occurred inside her shop, police say. Mother-of-three Charlotte Lahr, 46, was found lying unconscious inside South Ave. Wine and Liquor Thursday when a customer called for help to the scene. Authorities’ efforts to revive the woman were unsuccessful. Local parolee Kevin Quander, 59, was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and robbery the next day, thanks to surveillance footage of the crime and fingerprints that investigators were able to retrieve from the scene.

The problem isn't Gun Violence.

It's Violence.

This tragedy didn't have to happen.   You have to be desperate, or an idiot (or both) to commit such a heinous crime.

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.)

Jump The Shark?

Will Trump Supporters Defend Themselves?:

Should gun fire erupt on one side, it is also likely the other would return fire thereby causing a battleground even the police wouldn't be able to stop. This is why it is important for Trump supporters to maintain their composure and do not do anything drastic.

Again, Independent voters will see the rioters for what they are: anti-American thugs and criminals. By realizing this, they will likely vote for the Republican candidate. 

 Let's hope nobody pulls the trigger during this presidential campaign, particularly at the party conventions. Keep the Faith!

Tim Bryce at newstalkflorida.com counselled patience, forbearance,  and a "turn the other cheek" attitude for CHL armed Trump supporters if/when they are attacked and beaten at a Trump rally.

Are people 'allowed' to carry at a Trump rally?  If not, why not?  I thought Trump was a great supporter of the Second Amendment!
But either way, it's certainly possible that someone will come up with the dubious idea of volunteering to show up at a rally and 'protect' attendees from the maniacal rage of anti-Trump demonstrators.

Timmy's advice is hard to swallow, for a number of reasons.

First, because everyone KNOWS that the police are unlikely to do ANYTHING to protect unarmed, peaceful Conservative attendees, because they're afraid of "bad press".  (The San Jose police excuses of "we don't want to start a riot" wears thin considering that they have decided to stand by and WATCH a riot without doing a thing to stop it.)

And Liberal websites are only encouraging the rioters, stating (huffpost) "... violence a 'logical' response to trump".!!!

Timmy has a good point; nobody who is responsible enough to carry a defensive weapon wants to do anything to aggravate an already explosive "social" situation.    But it still rankles sober honest citizens who expects to be called upon to defend self, family, home.

Who anticipated that a crowd of outraged Americans who disagree on mere political positions would become "The Enemy"??   Because, that is what these "honest, caring, Law-Abiding Liberal Americans" are becoming.

This is the most divisive, odious presidential campaign in the history of this country.  One weeps to see what pawns Americans have allowed themselves to become.

BUT .... Timmy is right.
If armed Americans use their Second Amendment rights to defend themselves and their fellows against assault from other Americans ... aw, shit.

"Going To The Bullet Box"

WTF, Larry, were you thinking?

 Larry Pratt, the executive director emeritus of Gun Owners of America, said on his “Gun Owners News Hour” radio program this weekend that if a Democrat wins the White House and the Supreme Court starts issuing decisions in favor of gun regulations, conservatives may turn to the “bullet box” to rectify the situation.

What does "Going To The Bullet Box" mean?

I doubt that Mr. Pratt intended a threat.

I think he 'mis-spoke' on a talk show where one makes statements "off the cuff" which would have been phrased differently in an essay.   It's subject to personal interpretation; some of which may be accusatory.

Pratt may seem to have subtly offered violence to those who do not support his political views.  I'm morally certain that this was NOT Mr. Pratt's intention.  He wasn't making a call for a civil war.

He may have been trying to notify a presumptive Democratic Administration that gun-owners will 'stringently' oppose attempts to undermine our Second Amendment Rights.

By peaceful measures.  
The preferred method of protesting laws which contravene the obvious intent of the Second Amendment involve, primarily, "nonviolent civil disobedience". 

"I Will Not Comply" is one of the more recent methods (within this century) of Civil Disobedience.

When firearms owners are confronted by onerous and anti-constitutional measures (such as limitations on "high capacity magazines" or "assault weapons" or "Registration", they often quietly fail to register their guns, or turn in their magazines.

If it's not obvious, this approach is analogous ( if not the same ) as Ghandi's "Non-Violent Civil Disobedience" (see link above) which this Indian Saint used during the transition in India from British to "Indigenous" political control of one of the most populous nations in the world.

Acknowledging that interpretations of the Second Amendment by its advocates includes accepting the right of civilians to possess arms to resist a Totalitarian Government, most of 'us' (gun owners) don't really expect that the Constitutional rights will be repealed.   Yes, we have concerns that oure rights will be 'chipped away' by niggling little rules and regulations .. often on a states' level .. with future Supreme Court interpretations.

Yes, we are concerned that a Democratic Administration will nominate and seat Supreme Court Judges who are unfriendly to the Second Amendment.

And yes, we do not trust a Democratic Administration to hold the Second Amendment in the same reverence as we do.   A political philosophy which dismisses the Constitution as a "living document" is subject to the whims of an ungrateful nation.

But ...  "Going To The Bullet Box"?

That's not a Threat.
That's Rhetoric.

Beyond the Bullet: The Cost of Gun Violence in Detroit

Beyond the Bullet: The Cost of Gun Violence in Detroit: A child's fight after becoming a shooting victim Little 9-year-old India Williams was shot while riding her bike two years ago. Her family hangs out with us for an afternoon, talking about…

(This documentary can be found here.)
The video expose starts with an opening statement by the reporter.  He speaks to how hard it is to cover this kind of story:

I've been on the streets for about 14 years, working nighst, going to a lot of these scenes.   And the same question keeps coming up:  "How do you do what you do?  Don't you bring this stuff home with you???"   Looking at the crying mothers, the crying brothers and sisters, those violent crime scenes throughout the city.  The answer is, 'of course I do. I'm human like everyone else, I try to bury it in my subconscious, but it still eats at me and bothers me every day.   I may go home and think about it for two or three days, but .. .unfortunately, it's 'on to the next story'.

Through the story, there are references  to brothers mothers and sisters.  But there are no references to fathers.  At all.

What do YOU think is the worst that can happen at a school?

#1 
Rifles on campus: College security forces nationwide add firepower

"The reality is that these are not always handgun situations," said FBI agent Katherine Schweit, the bureau's senior executive in charge of active-shooter matters. "We can't tell a university realistically what's acceptable in their community -- that's up to them -- but we recognize the struggle that every community faces because many of these shooters come to the scene with a long gun." Bill Taylor, president of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, said he hasn't heard of any case in which a campus officer fired a rifle on the job. But police have broken out the weapons several times. 

People are concerned about rifles on campus.  Are you?


#2
A Texas teacher was arrested after video surfaced appearing to show her hitting a student multiple times during a Friday morning high school math class.

Mary Hastings was charged with misdemeanor assault after the incident at Ozen High School, FOX4Beaumont reported. She was initially taken to the Jefferson County Jail, but was released after posting a $2,500 bond.
Hastings, described as a veteran teacher, has only been with the Beaumont Independent School District for three years. BISD is investigating the incident.

People are concerned about teachers striking students. Are you?

#3 Apr. 01, 2016 -
 Chicago police are investigating whether a man shot multiple times on the city’s South Side was filming video that captured the attack.

1:54 - Chicago police work to validate the authenticity of the video which surfaced on social media

Warning, graphic video: Shooting captured on victim's iPhone

(video) <== referenced, but not embedded

People are concerned about people getting shot, and seem to be more concerned about seeing it than reading about it. Are you?

Sometimes, we have to back off from our understandable sense of outrage, and look for some perspective.   Not saying that none of these situations might not be cause for concern, but we need to understand that there are degrees of violence; potential, actual, and serious.

Not every degree of violence justifies the same level of reaction.

Vox vs Crowder: view of Gun Violence in America (LONG VIDEOS)

This post includes two video presenting opposite viewpoints.

The first, by VOX, takes about 7 minutes.
The second, by Crowder, takes about 20 minutes.
So the total time required to view both videos verges on a half-hour.

YOU may not want to watch this.  I watched it all (a couple of times) and I found that the divergent viewpoints made for ED TV.

But Crowder includes a lot of film test from VOX, so if you're only marginally interested in the topic, you might want to .. oh, no, I'm not going to suggest that you do not view the VOX version.
Nahhhh .. go watch the whole thing.  You don't have to watch it all in one sitting, but you might decide that you have learned to see both sides of the same subject.

And isn't that "A Good Thing"?

Pugil Stick Fighting in Army Basic Training

When I was drafted into the army, in 1969, I was the oldest man in the platoon at 23 years old.  Also, I was the only married man (I got married six days before my report date!) so my platoon cadre chose me to be the "Platoon Guide", which is an honorary position; it means that I was responsible for anything BAD that happened in my platoon.  I had no actual power, except that I would assign platoon members to all the shit details that were assigned to my platoon.  This did not make me the most popular guy in the platoon.

The Cadre made the appointment before we showed up for Basic Training at Fort Lewis, Washington (just outside Tacoma), so they didn't actually know that I was a physical weakling, and total wimp.  They only knew I was a college graduate, old, married, and they assumed I had something going for me.

They may not have noticed that I only weighed 126 pounds, and that I was 6' tall.

Which was not all that bad a thing, because I was able to accomplish administrative tasks remarkably well.

But I didn't know how to fight.

Then came the day when they introduced us to PUGIL STICK TRAINING.

Delaware Violence: NY Times disappointed in CDC reporting

Delaware has a problem with "Violence" which is among the greatest in America.   That much we can say.

So Delaware asked the Center for Disease Control to research the problem; which the CDC did.

But the New York Times (and people in Delaware) are disappointed that the CDC report covered 'violence in Delaware' rather than "GUN Violence in Delaware'.

NPR said the things that Delaware wanted to say, but the CDC couldn't report that information directly.

The New York Times: (note: unable to append the NYT video interview because of proprietary constraints it isn't available on YouTube) covered the CDC report, but focused  on the disappointment that: ",.. (u)nfortunately they [the CDC] feel like they can only talk about part of the problem, they can’t talk about the gun part of the problem... ”
[emphasis added]

The Wilmington research [by the CDC] sidestepped the funding restrictions, because it was a response to a request and because “it doesn’t focus as much on the issue of guns themselves; it really focuses on these other risk factors and ways to intervene,” said. Dr. Linda Degutis, the former director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the C.D.C. She added that it was frustrating to be unable to do an extensive study on gun violence while she was there.
 David Hemenway, a director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, said that could be a shortcoming of an effort to look at gun violence. “Unfortunately they feel like they can only talk about part of the problem, they can’t talk about the gun part of the problem,” Dr. Hemenway said, adding, “Looking at the supply side — how do they get these destructive weapons?”
 Questions remain about whether the focus on risk factors before a shooting amounts to profiling people who have not committed a crime, and how exactly to coordinate data, social, health and educational services that could help intervene. Still, public health experts say it is a methodically sound and instructive study, if limited. “If there were adequate funding on firearm-related research, there would have been papers out on this a decade ago, not just in Wilmington, but in many other large cities,” Dr. Miller said.

Shouldn't any report on "Violence" consider all forms of Violence?  Unfortunately, too often news-source reporting will focus on "gun violence" rather than 'all violence'.

Unless you are the 800 pound Gorilla in the story .... the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
And then ... you are congressionaly BARRED from glamorizing Gun Violence

The CDC has found itself constrained from researching/reporting strictly on "Gun Violence" because for a time their research on that subject was unbalanced; they spent their efforts on the negative aspects of firearms ownership while ignoring the positive aspects.  Specifically, they declined to report on the lives saved by individuals who were able to defend themselves, their families, their homes and their possessions because they had legal access to firearms.