If someone were to say there were too many of something then wouldn’t that mean they would advocate reducing the number?
Maybe guns are a guy thing essentially, and there are too many of you.
— Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) January 8, 2013
Apparently I’m a number to be reduced. Nice to know where I stand in the minds of the anti-gun people.
It has always annoyed me that I don’t have cell service while waiting for the bus at Westlake Station (downtown Seattle). Many times the bus or I will be late and I need to tell someone I’m not going to be on time but I have to wait until the bus arrives and gets me out of the tunnel. Or I could leave the tunnel on my own and risk missing the bus and being even later.
Yes, it’s in a tunnel 80 (?) feet underground but I put in my own microcell in the middle of a field in Idaho something like 30 miles from the nearest cell tower and have good service for myself and my Boomershoot “customers” using AT&T. Why couldn’t the cell companies get service 80 feet?
Now I know the answer:
The reason you don’t have cell coverage in Westlake Station is because the Three Stooges refused to allow the carriers to ride on the radio system without paying substantial fees for the privilege. Verizon, T-Mobil, Sprint, et al gave a collective “Eff You” to the Stooges when they demanded the fees, and now the populace is denied cell coverage.
Governments don’t have customers to make happy. They have subjects.
The defining American code is freedom. The defining liberal code is compassion. Conservatives have attempted to counter that by defining freedom as compassionate, as George W. Bush did. Liberals counter by attempting to define compassion as liberating, the way that FDR did by classing freedoms with entitlements in his Four Freedoms.
On one side stands the individual with his rights and responsibilities. On the other side is the remorseless state machinery of supreme compassion. And there is no bridging this gap.
Daniel Greenfield
December 17, 2012
Gun Control, Thought Control and People Control
[H/T to JPFO.
Nearly every paragraph in Greenfield’s post would qualify for a QOTD here. It is filled with awesome insights.
I decided to focus on these two paragraphs because of the last sentence of the second paragraph quoted above.
I’ve read that no two businesses or even species in nature share the same exact marketplace or ecologically niche at the same time. One will dominate and push the others out or cause them to differentiate themselves.
The freedom and anti-freedom, the left being the dominate flavor of anti-freedom, people are in a political struggle for the geographical niche known as the United States of America. There is no compromising with the other side anymore than there is compromising with someone that wishes to rob you or loot your business. There is only winning versus losing and protecting your property versus having your property redistributed for the common good.
The language of the left betrays this mindset.
In their “compassion” they will sometimes “concede” a “buy-back” of firearms they want confiscated. You can’t “buy back” something that was not yours to begin with. And you can’t “buy” something with money that you confiscated (in the form of taxes) from the victims you want to take the property from. But in the mind of the left all property, including money, is “community property” and there is no inconsistency. They don’t, and probably can’t, “get” the problem we have with their plans.
The anti-gun people claim removing restrictions against people carrying firearms on college campuses is “forcing guns on campuses”. Did you catch that? In other words we are using the power of government to force liberty upon them. One of daughter Kim’s economic class reading materials literally referred to the U.S. government “forcing free markets.” In their language and their world/philosophical view that makes perfect sense rather than being a self-contradicting statement.
They can barely understand that we don’t trust the government. They can understand not trusting the “right government” which in broad terms is a government which is not “compassionate.” But they cannot understand not trusting a government because of its size. The classic joke about the anti-freedom people fear Libertarians because they would take over the government and leave everyone alone is funny because it is true. It is beyond their philosophical framework to not trust the government based on its size. It simply doesn’t make sense. It is a nonsensical thought and in order to make sense of it they have to redefine the fear of large government in other terms such as “greed”, “selfishness”, or a as a close relative recently told me, “heartless bastards”. Gun owners cannot possibly be serious about defense against a tyrannical government and rational gun ownership must be redefined in terms of a hobby, penis substitution, or some sort of paranoia in order for it to make sense to them.
Any “compromise” they offer is defined in terms they understand. They are “compromising” by “allowing” us to continue our “hobby” by registering our firearms/magazines and submitting to a licensing process. In their minds this is a HUGE concession. In our minds this essentially defeats the entire usefulness of the right to keep and bear arms.
It goes deeper. They do not comprehend that the act of submitting to the government over a basic right is unacceptable. Submission to government/authority on every level is so fundamental to their nature it is like a fish in water. Any glimpse of “not water” is very brief and incomprehensibly hostile. It is extremely scary to them. More government is less scary and more “compassionate” to them.
They oppose us so vigorously and with so much violence because they see it as does a fish having their water removed. In their minds we have to be insane, incredibly stupid, or have evil intent. There is no other way to explain our actions and desires. Hence they are completely justified in killing us because if we had our way we would destroy their existence.
As Greenfield says, “There is no bridging this gap.”
I only see two possible outcomes and two ways to get there.
The possible outcomes are:
The two ways to get there are:
The force option will result in massive numbers of people being forcibly imprisoned and/or murdered.
The big wild card in this deck is that the intended victims are arming up and training. The outcome is difficult to see. It depends both upon the order in which the cards show up and how the cards are played. For example had a “Newtown massacre” occurred before the Heller decision the course of history could have been drastically different. And so it is with our future.
I hate to go all Godwin here but I’m seeing the final option being played by the anti-freedom people as being the Final Solution to the “freedom problem”. Let’s play our cards well.—Joe]
January 19, 2013 has been declared Gun Appreciation Day.
When I first heard about this, via an email from Ray Carter, Director of Development, at SAF, the first thought that came to mind was, “I really should clean some of my guns.” That is especially true of the ones that I didn’t clean after shooting them months ago. If they were sentient they would appreciate it.
But that isn’t what this is really about. It’s about sending a message to politicians. And some of our politicians really need to get the message.
I wonder how much CO2 emissions would be decreased if the global cooling/warming/climate-change whiners were to stop exhaling all that CO2.
I work in downtown Seattle. I don’t like cities in general because I have strong introvert tendencies and crowds of people “drain my energy”. Go to a lower, more detailed, and less personal, level and it just gets worse.
This happened January 1st in a place I walk through twice a day:
Several shots were fired inside the Westlake bus tunnel in downtown Seattle Tuesday night, according to the Seattle Police Department. But, officers were unable to turn up any suspects, witnesses or victims.
Two bike officers heard the shots while patrolling Westlake Park around 11:40 p.m.
Several people were running out of the Metro tunnel when the officers arrived. But, the man officers stopped said he only heard the shots and didn’t see the shooting.
Officers found six bullet casings and fragments on the tunnel’s mezzanine level and are reviewing surveillance video in an attempt to come up with any additional information.
Within the last few months the bank, essentially across the street from where I work and where I do most of my banking was robbed at gunpoint and there was a shooting in the hallway I traverse to get to the pizza place in the mall where I frequently get lunch.
This morning as I was riding to work the bus was stopped and could not enter the Westlake tunnel station where I usually get off. There was a fire in the tunnel and it was being evacuated.
Two years ago this happened in that tunnel where I get on and off my bus.
Had someone been kicking a 15-year old girl in the head while she was on the ground when I was around and within range they likely would have been shot (the guards just a few feet away doing nothing could have been collateral damage that I wouldn’t have been too concerned about at the moment—They have standing orders to “observe and report”). That would make for a very messed up existence for weeks and perhaps years for me.
I just want to go home to Idaho away from everyone but a few close friends and do something safe in the middle of a 100 acre field. Something like play with explosives.
This is so boring, every ass can see that this gun thing is about small dicks #guncontrol
ArieKreyveldt
Tweeted on December 18, 2012.
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via still another Tweet from Linoge.—Joe]
I see people every day who should be pepper sprayed. The world would be a better place if someone just hosed them down.
Greg Hamilton
January 5, 2012
[While Greg was almost for certain exaggerating to make a point it is also true he goes places and does things as part of his “continuing education” that most “ordinary people” would not do.
It’s always a pleasure to take a class from Greg. He says things in a succinct, humorous, and insightful manner that makes the lesson stick.
Yesterday I was retaking a two day class I had taken in the late 90’s. Last time it was with my son James and daughter Kim. This time it was with Barb L. and her kids. Even though I had basically not practiced anything from this class in well over a decade it still came right back and I was anticipating the next lessons and was able to coach other students who were my “sparing partners” when they didn’t quite get it right.
Insights Training. Highly recommended.—Joe]
We need Liberal control, not gun control in order to save lives.
Robert J. Avrech
Emmy Award winning screenwriter. Religious Zionist. Republican. Movie fanatic. Gun owner.
December 26, 2012
Comment to Stalked: Girl Without A Gun
[There is more than a little truth to this statement. The liberal agenda enables and emboldens criminals both on the streets and in control of the power of the state.
Reading the post made me think of Barb L. and her “I can’t wait until he is my ex” husband (as she described her husband in the first few minutes of our first date). Her situation probably wasn’t as bad as the one detailed in the post but still she “got her affairs in order” before the divorce papers were served on him because she believed the chances were significantly greater than zero that he would kill her after he was served.
The papers were served several months ago and Barb’s anxiety has decreased some. We seldom talk about it but it’s not something I ever forget. We recently found out that he knows she is “seeing someone” and he knows my name.
Every visit to her place, every time she visits me, every time we see each other at lunch I wonder if he or a friend is watching. He certainly knows where she lives and works but does he know where I live and work too? Would he be able to find her and the kids at my place if things ever “got ugly”? Sometimes people “raise their eyebrow” when they get hints as to the extent I safeguard the address of my residence but this is one of those times I’m glad I have.
I go to the observation deck of my clock tower when I hear her car drive up and as she leaves my place to make sure she makes it across the parking lot safely. As far as I’m concerned it’s a known distance range and if I can see it with my naked eye I can hit it. Her 300 pound “I can’t wait until he is my ex” husband would be easily visible, even without my glasses, in the parking lot.
I’ve taught her how to use a gun and she, her children, and I will soon be taking an Insights class together. The best way to save lives is to be responsible for our own safety. Acquiring the skills and tools to do that effectively are an essential part of being responsible adults. Many liberals want to do away with that. This has and will cost many lives.—Joe]
Some men are alive simply because it is against the law to kill them.
Edward W. Howe
[I have a funny story to tell that involves this quote on a couple of t-shirts. But ask me in person sometime. It wouldn’t be appropriate to put it on the web.—Joe]
A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Here, then, is my “madder-than-hell-and-I’m-not-going-to-take-it-anymore” program for ending gun violence in America:
• Repeal the Second Amendment, the part about guns anyway. It’s badly written, confusing and more trouble than it’s worth. It offers an absolute right to gun ownership, but it puts it in the context of the need for a “well-regulated militia.” We don’t make our militia bring their own guns to battles. And surely the Founders couldn’t have envisioned weapons like those used in the Newtown shooting when they guaranteed gun rights. Owning a gun should be a privilege, not a right.
• Declare the NRA a terrorist organization and make membership illegal. Hey! We did it to the Communist Party, and the NRA has led to the deaths of more of us than American Commies ever did. (I would also raze the organization’s headquarters, clear the rubble and salt the earth, but that’s optional.) Make ownership of unlicensed assault rifles a felony. If some people refused to give up their guns, that “prying the guns from their cold, dead hands” thing works for me.
• Then I would tie Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, our esteemed Republican leaders, to the back of a Chevy pickup truck and drag them around a parking lot until they saw the light on gun control.
And if that didn’t work, I’d adopt radical measures.
Donald Kaul
December 29, 2012
Kaul: Nation needs a new agenda on guns
[I think I owe a H/T to some blogger but I lost that info. Sorry about that.
In addition to being violently opposed to the 2nd Amendment he is willing to (have someone else) use violence against people exercising their First Amendment rights (freedom of association in this case) and the Fifth Amendment (due process).
Suggestion to Kaul: You should plan on take point on those plans of yours because that would probably result in a less painful end than waiting around for someone else’s point to find you.
Oh, and another thing. The “my cold dead hands” thing went out in the mid-90’s although Charlton Heston did use a few times after that. It was replaced with, “When you reanimate your cold, dead, hands.”—Joe]
I spent New Years Eve with Barb L. and her family. I was told not to bring anything but didn’t think that was right so I brought something to snack on. This was one of those things that you just throw together with stuff you found in the cupboard thinking, “It probably will be okay.”
There is a fair chance Barb was just being nice or it was so she could put it on her “Don’t List” but she asked me for the recipe.
Here it is:
3 Cups water
1 Cup lentils
3/4 Cup split peas
1/4 Cup brown rice
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 Cup shredded cheddar cheeseCombine all ingredients except the cheese and garlic salt in a pressure cooker and bring up to pressure.
Cook for 10 minutes, stir in garlic salt, and put in a glass serving dish.
Spread cheese on top, cover, and cook on high in the microwave for 60 seconds.
Serve with Tostitos with Hint of Lime.
You’d think they would know their American history. Taxes started the debate, going to take the colonials firearms started the war.
Gerry
December 27, 2012
Comment to Quote of the day—Alan.
[This may become the quote of the year or the decade. It might even be quote of the century. The next few months or maybe year or two will tell.
Rivrdog has thoughts on the comment as well.
At the highest levels of the gun control movement the people are generally not stupid or ignorant (there are some exceptions). A case could be made that these people know that in the present political climate of oppressive and unjust taxes the confiscation of firearms will be a spark in the tinder box that ignites a rebellion. Furthermore a case could be made that such a rebellion is exactly what they want so they can rid the country of “those troublemakers” that hinder the implementation of their utopia.
If such a disaster occurs I hope the case is proven at their eventual trials.—Joe]
Ur luv of guns will not make ur penis any bigger. Give it up. Find another hobby
Nancy Lee Grahn
Tweeted on December 14, 2012
[[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via Twitchy Staff.—Joe]
I will say that if someone suggested a reasonable boundary and a buyback, it would matter to me how generous it is. Paying 150% of 2012 market price would seem pretty fair. It would not even hurt the economy if you printed money to do a lot of that. If money is traded for guns, and guns are destroyed, the wealth remains the same.
john personna
December 28, 2012
Comment to Taxing Ammunition
[He has no clue as to what wealth is.
And more generally he also has no clue as to the fundamentals of economics. As the supply goes down the price goes up. 150% of 2012 market price would be a buyers market when the supply is being forcibly set to zero. The people actually willing to sell their firearms and accessories at 150% of 2012 market price could get 200% or perhaps even 2000% on the black market.
I can only conclude liberalism is a mental disorder. This becomes a dangerous delusion that they are the superior ones and should be in charge.—Joe]
It appears to me there may be a problem with the meanings of words in the gun control debate.
Many anti-gun people want to “ban assault weapons” or “ban high capacity magazines”. I think what they really want to do is abolish them. I think when they hear and say “ban” they believe, at some level, that a ban will quickly result in abolishment. I’m not convinced they have distinguished the two in their minds.
“Ban” and “abolish” are very different things. As difficult as it is to get a controversial law through the legislature and signed into law that is child’s play compared to abolishing something so easily made, popular with millions of people, and with tens or hundreds of millions of them in existence.
Most recreational drugs are banned but we haven’t come close to abolishing them.
Most political jurisdictions in this country have banned prostitution. I’m certain the worlds oldest profession is a still viable career option for someone with the proper physical attributes.
Many beverages containing alcohol were banned during the first part of the last century. People were smart enough to realize banning it didn’t abolish it, it never would, and the ban was repealed.
A ban on certain types of guns or gun accessories with no hope of approaching abolishment is pointless as a potential solution.
Perhaps when someone suggests a ban we should ask them if they really mean abolish. It might help them realize the difference and the difficulties.
Many times I have heard, “Both sides can’t be right.” While there are certainly times when this is true there are also lots of times when it is not true but it appears to be true on the surface.
My classic example is the Civil War. If it were true the war was entirely about slavery and those fighting for the south were fighting to preserve slavery then sure, only one side can be right. But if those fighting for the south were fighting to preserve states rights while those in the north were fighting to end slavery then both sides could be right. They are “talking” past one another, but they could both be right.
A similar thing happens in some gun control debates.
One side (exaggerated to make the point) can claim, “Innocent children should not be shot! Ban all guns!” The other side can claim, “Banning guns will not make the children safer! Let good guys carry guns in schools to protect them.”
Although the proposed solutions are at complete odds with no possible compromise between the them both sides are fighting for what are almost for certain equally valid truths. Innocent children should not be shot and banning guns will not make children safer.
While I cannot claim any extraordinary expertise in this endeavor it is going to be far more productive to identify the things you do agree with one another on before engaging in a battle over the things you disagree on. Compromise may be impossible, but there might be solutions that are agreeable to both/all sides if you can realize you have a common goal. For example a orthogonal solution may work without stomping on either side.
What’s an orthogonal solution? In the case of the school shootings a solution to “ban guns” versus “good guys with guns” an orthogonal solution would be to “ban schools”. For example if children were to be taught online supervised by their parents or in much small groups there wouldn’t be such large groups of tempting, nearly helpless, targets.
There may be many solutions to a problem but without a clear problem statement and agreement that common ground does exist people are likely to get stuck pushing their solution rather than solving the problem.
Problem statements drive the solution. Incorrect and unarticulated problem statements limit the range of solutions.
In the case of school shootings examine the following problem statements, somewhat exaggerated to make the point:
Depending on the choice of problem statement the range of solutions are completely different. And there may be other problem statements beyond what I have enumerated above. Defining the problem correctly is frequently more difficult than finding solutions.
I know it’s tough but finding common ground and accurately defining the problem not only leads to a broader range of solutions but it also gets people working to solve the problem rather than fighting each other. Work on problem statements rather than fighting with others. We are better than this.
Dating you has somehow made me a dude magnet.
Barb L.
Via text message to me on December 27, 2012.
[I’m not surprised. It’s that smile on her face all the time.—Joe]
If the Los Angeles riots taught us anything, it’s that you’re a fool if you count on the authorities to protect you in times of civil chaos — in fact, at any time. In the end, only I can protect my family.
I’m never, ever going to allow myself to be outgunned by the bad guys. All the gun laws that are on the books—and there are thousands of them—just make it that much easier for the barbarians to amass weapons and for law-abiding people like you and me to be at their mercy.
Robert J. Avrech
Emmy Award winning screenwriter. Religious Zionist. Republican. Movie fanatic. Gun owner.
December 18, 2012
Jew Without a Gun
[Via Ry.
Before the experience of his family in the L.A. riots he did not own a gun. The L.A. riots were the motivating force to change that. For me it was Ruby Ridge.—Joe]