Gun Violence vs. Gun Rights

The Daily Beast had this article:  http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/14/a-former-navy-firearms-instructor-and-proud-gun-owner-on-why-we-need-common-sense-gun-control.html

A Former Navy Firearms Instructor and Proud Gun Owner On Why We Need Common Sense Gun Control

A gun owner and former Navy firearms instructor makes the case for common sense gun control and why we need to adopt it now, before the next tragedy.

Why do we only talk about gun control after the most unbearable national tragedies? Why don’t we adopt the common sense gun control regulations that have broad public support and might actually prevent the next tragedy?

Before half the country decides that I am a crazy liberal and stops reading here, let me note that I am a security professional, and a 12-year veteran of the Navy, where I served as a weapons system technician, base police officer, and firearms instructor. I am a proud gun owner. I’m also a single father. I do not want to ban guns but I do want to protect my son from the dangers they pose.

Our nation has settled into a very predictable routine of public discourse regarding firearms. A deranged individual—a neo-Nazi, a disillusioned ex-employee, or even a disturbed child—commits an act of public violence. The 24-hour news cycle obsesses on every morbid detail, speculating on motives and puzzling over “who’s to blame?” The righteous left preaches “never again” by way of tighter restrictions and more regulation, and the fringe right accuses them of politicizing a tragedy and warns that the government is coming for our firearms.

And then, nothing changes.

Depressing as this picture is, however, the gun control conversation should be happening even more frequently. Deaths due to poor knowledge of firearms happen on the small scale every day; just this past weekend, 11-year-old Hunter Pederson was accidentally killed by his uncle, who was showing off a laser sight by pointing it at the boy’s forehead.

The fact is that thousands of deaths all across our country can be prevented with solid intelligence sharing and common sense regulation. Between 83% and 91% of the country supports background checks for all gun purchases and yet, somehow, this simple provision is consistently written out of proposed legislation. It is time that we make this a permanent policy priority rather than a set of talking points to be rolled out alongside the names of our next shooting victims.

I am proud gun owner. I’m also a single father. I do not want to ban guns but I do want to protect my son from the dangers they pose.

I love my guns, and I’m no hypocrite. But I love my son more. I love taking him to school, a movie, or simply around the block without fearing for his life. It is dangerous and shortsighted to require so little of our fellow gun owners, because—as 11-year-old Hunter’s case tragically shows—they hold the very lives of those around them in their hands.

So what can we do? The best proposals are all about common sense and moderation—too often four-letter words in politics. Background checks and mental health evaluations for all gun owners, on a five-year verification cycle, would be a great first step.

Requiring licenses and negligent discharge insurance would be part of common sense reform. Much like vehicles—which are also key pieces of personal property that can take lives when they are operated irresponsibly, firearms should require a license to own and operate. A tiered licensing system could apply to different types of weapons. Insurance could cover any damages caused by negligent discharge, and skyrocketing rates might prove discouraging for repeat offenders.

Prudent limits need to be imposed. We should consider putting a cap on the number of firearms purchased for personal use. Allowances could be made for licensed gun dealers, but home protection and hunting require don’t require individuals to keep an arsenal. At the very least, misdemeanors such as DUIs, drug charges, and white-collar crimes should be added to the list of crimes that preclude offenders from owning firearms.

Opponents will no doubt ask how we intend to pay for all of these new requirements. A tax on ammunition and weapons manufacturers and end-users seems like a relevant place to start. With $617 billion spent to fund our national defense, we can certainly grab a billion or two to fund these lifesaving reforms.

For some gun-rights advocates, no amount of smart budgeting will change their mind because for them any attempt to restrict firearm ownership amounts to an assault on liberty. But most sensible people, even those who own guns and value the 2nd Amendment, understand that the exercise of rights requires some trade-offs. After all, a majority of NRA members support background checks too.

Tragic assaults on public safety by dangerous people are only part of the problem in the United States. A good guy with a gun can turn into a bad guy due to one slip up or a simple misunderstanding and an itchy trigger finger. It’s time we prioritize the debate on gun control and see some real change.

I responded thus:

Are we required to receive training to determine our fitness to vote?  Are we then required to pass a screening periodically in order to maintain that right?  There are certain restrictions placed on the right to vote:  Must be of legal age.  Must be a member of the local, county, state or federal population in which you are casting a vote.  There are even limitations of voting by convicted criminals.  These things are not the same as having to prove you are responsible enough to vote.  Or saying you can't vote because your vote might be dangerous.

Do we have to have approval of our message before we exercise our right to free speech?  True, often we must request a permit to peaceably assemble but the permit may not be denied because what we have to say is not acceptable to some.  If the permit is denied, the speech can still be uttered, just not in the center lane of the San Francisco Bridge.

Do I have to have anyone's approval in order to justify being secure in my person, house, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures?  What committee of panel should decide such a thing for each citizen? Only allowing acceptable people to have such a right means your collection of vegetarian cookbooks meets the annual rights renewal review but my collection of Jewish holocaust concentration camp photos might be deemed too subversive or potentially harmful.

Don't tell me it's different with guns because they kill people.  It is not.  It is as much (or more) dangerous to require burdensome proof and acceptability screening to vote or exercise any right... it only seems reasonable because the horrific harm is incremental and not so shockingly abrupt.  Ask those who are doing cheetah-flips over something as seemingly benign as voter ID.

If no amount of blood spilt was too much to stop the fledgling American nation from establishing these rights, no amount of blood spilt can justify giving them up.

And I WILL say it.  Your 6 years olds life is not MORE important than any of the rights established by the Bill of Rights... no one's child... not even mine... ever.  It is for the very safety of our children and their future that I will denounce and defy anyone attempting to take away any right.  Be they trying to seize it whole-cloth or trying to chip-away at its edges.

Undocumented, but otherwise law-abiding immigrants

"Undocumented, but otherwise law-abiding immigrants."  I hear this a lot in defense of immigration reform.  What it translates to is:  Broke a law to get here but have not broken any more.

Cool!  So I can break one law and get a mulligan?  I choose Bank Robbery.  That's the one I want to be able to break and not get prosecuted.  I should net about a million bucks if I pick the right bank.  After that one episode of criminality I promise to obey all other laws forever and ever.

Ferguson: This man says what I think... so I'm putting it here.

The Ferguson Fraud

By RICH LOWRY

 

November 25, 2014

The bitter irony of the Michael Brown case is that if he had actually put his hands up and said don't shoot, he would almost certainly be alive today. His family would have been spared an unspeakable loss, and Ferguson, Missouri wouldn't have experienced multiple bouts of rioting, including the torching of at least a dozen businesses the night it was announced that Officer Darren Wilson wouldn't be charged with a crime.

Instead, the credible evidence (i.e., the testimony that doesn't contradict itself or the physical evidence) suggests that Michael Brown had no interest in surrendering. After committing an act of petty robbery at a local business, he attacked Officer Wilson when he stopped him on the street. Brown punched Wilson when the officer was still in his patrol car and attempted to take his gun from him.

The first shots were fired within the car in the struggle over the gun. Then, Michael Brown ran. Even if he hadn't put his hands up, but merely kept running away, he would also almost certainly be alive today. Again, according to the credible evidence, he turned back and rushed Wilson. The officer shot several times, but Brown kept on coming until Wilson killed him.

This is a terrible tragedy. It isn't a metaphor for police brutality or race repression or anything else, and never was. Aided and abetted by a compliant national media, the Ferguson protestors spun a dishonest or misinformed version of what happened—Michael Brown murdered in cold blood while trying to give up—into a chant ("hands up, don't shoot") and then a mini-movement.

When the facts didn't back their narrative, they dismissed the facts and retreated into paranoid suspicion of the legal system. It apparently required more intellectual effort than almost any liberal could muster even to say, "You know, I believe policing in America is deeply unjust, but in this case the evidence is murky and not enough to indict, let alone convict anyone of a crime." 

They preferred to charge that the grand jury process was rigged, because St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch didn't seek an indictment of Wilson and allowed the grand jury to hear all the evidence and make its own decision. This, Chris Hayes of MSNBC deemed so removed from normal procedure that it’s unrecognizable.

It's unusual, yes, but not unheard of for prosecutors to present a case to a grand jury without a recommendation to indict. Regardless, who could really object to a grand jury hearing everything in such a sensitive case? If any of the evidence were excluded that, surely, would have been the basis of other howls of an intolerably stacked deck.

It’s a further travesty, according to the Left, that Officer Wilson was allowed to testify to the grand jury. Never mind that it is standard operating procedure. As former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy points out, guilty parties usually don't testify because they have to do it without their lawyer present and anything they say can be used against them.

It is also alleged that the prosecutor McCulloch is biased because his father was a cop who was killed by a criminal. Follow this argument though to its logical conclusion and McCulloch would be unable to handle almost all cases, because of his engrained bias against criminality.

Finally, there is the argument that Wilson should have been indicted so there could be a trial "to determine the facts." Realistically, if a jury of Wilson's peers didn't believe there was enough evidence to establish probable cause to indict him, there was no way a jury of his peers was going to convict him of a crime, which requires the more stringent standard of beyond a reasonable doubt.

Besides, we don't try people for crimes they almost certainly didn't commit just to satisfy a mob that will throw things at the police and burn down local businesses if it doesn't get its way. If the grand jury had given into the pressure from the streets and indicted as an act of appeasement, the mayhem most likely would have only been delayed until the inevitable acquittal in a trial. 

The agitators of Ferguson have proven themselves proficient at destroying other people's property, no matter what the rationale. This summer, they rioted when the police response was "militarized" and rioted when the police response was un-militarized. Local businesses like the beauty-supply shops Beauty Town (hit repeatedly) and Beauty World (burned on Monday night) have been targeted for the offense of existing, not to mention employing people and serving customers.

Liberal commentators come back again and again to the fact that Michael Brown was unarmed and that, in the struggle between the two, Officer Wilson only sustained bruises to his face, or what Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo calls an "irritated cheek." The subtext is that if only Wilson had allowed Brown to beat him up and perhaps take his gun, things wouldn't have had to escalate.

There is good reason for a police officer to be in mortal fear in the situation Officer Wilson faced, though. In upstate New York last March, a police officer responded to a disturbance call at an office, when suddenly a disturbed man pummeled the officer as he was attempting to exit his vehicle and then grabbed his gun and shot him dead. The case didn't become a national metaphor for anything.

Ferguson, on the other hand, has never lacked for media coverage, although the narrative of a police execution always seemed dubious and now has been exposed as essentially a fraud. "Hands up, don't shoot" is a good slogan. If only it was what Michael Brown had done last August.

Rich Lowry is editor of National Review.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/11/ferguson-fraud-113178.html#ixzz3KAyqMNBC

The rise of homophilia

For every use of the word "homophobe" I will also try to use the word "homophile."  Homophobe is thrown at anyone who might dare to take even the smallest issue with even the tiniest aspect of the LGBT agenda.  The opposite is also true of those who would embrace any aspect of that same agenda without any criticism or scrutiny whatsoever.  Just as an Anglophile can't shut up about all things British or a Bibliophile goes on endlessly about how good old books smell or how e-book readers are for morons.  It's the same with Homophiles.  They love all things Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender.  Their dialog seems centered only around that aspect of their lives.  It influences their fashion choices, grooming standards and home décor.  They assess potential friends by that criteria first.  They seem eternally to be searching for gay-friendly things and railing against homophobes.  Just like I get sick of looking at a guy's collection of pub glasses from all over the U.K.... I also get sick of hearing about how a guy you know didn't get a job because the interviewer seemed to have a problem with him talking about his "husband."  Maybe the umpteenth time you try to invite my family back to the Gay Pride parade and we don't want to go is because I had to spend the entire ride back last time trying to explain to my child why that one man had a dog leash tied to his winkie and was letting another man lead him down the street with it.  Or having my wife look on in horrified shock when she answered a woman's proposition that she "Come on over to our side." by saying, "But I thought people were born this way?  Now you're trying to recruit me?"  Then getting cussed out for being a homophobe and bigot.

New Office

Back on April 5th 2013 I posted a picture of my office at the 30th AG Reception Battalion on Fort Benning.  I have been at my new assignment at the Naval Construction Battalion Center in Gulfport Mississippi for over a year and thought I'd post a picture of my new digs.  It's a bigger office but it is an interior room so it has no window.  Although this is a Navy Base I am at the Army 12W Carpentry/Masonry School as it's Reserve Component Liaison.

Let's talk about the penis for a minute. Should it be adjustable?

This subject is making me uncomfortable before I've even begun but this thought occurred to me and I didn't want to lose it to memory so it goes here.  Since nobody reads this web-log but me, it's tantamount to still being in my head.  The subject is the male penis.

Medical science can work miracles.  They can transplant almost any organ.  They can take a woman from an A-cup to a D-cup with an out-patient boob-job.  They can lipo-suck away a lifetime's worth of unhealthy eating and return our washboard abs.  They can sculpt away our turkey wattle necks, our crows feet, our jowls.  They can even restore a woman's virginity by reconstructing the hymen.  All these things are possible and yet there is no procedure to increase a man's penis size.

To be sure, there are snake oil salesmen, hucksters and hawkers galore.:  All of them promising to increase the size of the male penis.  Pumps and pills and ointments that can cause inflammation and swelling but that do not permanently change a thing.  That's the penis responding to being attacked with harsh chemicals or pounded mercilessly by vacuum pressure.  It's nothing more than self-inflicted injury.  The fact that men do it to themselves willingly says something about how desperate we are, as a gender, to be bigger.

The harsh reality is this:  At some point in adolescence, a young man will reach what is to be his permanent size.  Some will be massive.  They will have what are called clubs, hammers, coke-can dicks, babies arm holding an apple... that sort of thing.  Others will watch in horror as their childhood peanut grows hair around it, as the testicles grow and drop but that is all.  They are to be cursed with a small member for life.  Most men fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum.  Of average size and girth.  Between four and six inches.  Adequate but not spectacular.  And this is where we obsess.

Like women, we don't want to be average, plain, or regular.  We want to be spectacular, incredible, remarkable.  No woman wants to be cute.  She wants to be gorgeous.  She doesn't want narrow hips or a flat chest or anything other than a heart-shaped bottom.  Men have the same attitude.  We don't want a penis that can get the job done.  We want a penis that will do the job better than anyone else.  The best job possible.  A job so good that our woman will flush and get a wistful, faraway look in her eye at the mention of our name.  

We can learn to be skillful lovers in other ways.  I suggest that men do this... it can only help your case.  A well educated mouth can bond a woman to you.  Not just what it can do but what it can say.  We can gain favor by being well dressed, well mannered, charming, well groomed, considerate, thoughtful, attentive... the list goes on.  We can workout to sculpt our bodies into the likeness of Michelangelo's David or Brad Pitt from "Legends of the Fall."  We can grow our hair long or short as a woman prefers.  If our hair is falling out, there are options to change that.  Most of our body can be changed, sculpted and improved.  Alas... not the one-eyed trouser snake.  We can make a woman love us for all the good things we do, have and are.  What we also want to do is make her gasp in a mixture of amazement, apprehension and pleasure as we enter her with our python.  Not our little buddy, our cute fireman, our pink noodle.  We want it to be known as Thor's hammer, our purple headed warrior, a fire hose, a salami... you get the picture.

Women say this is not the primary factor in choosing a man.  They say we obsess about it way more than they care about it.  I believe this is true.  I don't think any but, perhaps the smallest of the small, are insufficient enough to be unable to give a woman any pleasure.  She can work with most anything  presented to her.  It's all about the angle.  That may be true but I think most men want to be so large as to make her a little bit afraid.  Not terrified like, "Keep that thing away from me!" but sort of an anxious trepidation.  "I want to but I'm not sure it will fit.  I'll try."  Those are the words we want to hear.  And we both know... if you can deliver a baby, you can fit us in.  We just want to make you doubt for a moment.

I suppose it's a good thing that there is no surgery to increase penis length and girth.  If there was, men the world over would mortgage all they own to get a foot long loaf of French bread between their legs.  Woman would rebel.  It would backfire and we'd be left alone with our massive members.  Perhaps it's better not to have any choice and to just learn to work with what you have.  Although...

In my own experience... in those moments of pillow talk when you feel safe enough to bring up very intimate issues... I've had women confess that there is a pleasant sensation of "fullness" that comes from a man who is big.  Not so much long as thick.  Too long can be painful but seldom has thickness ever been anything but pleasant.  Maybe what men long for is not a larger penis but an adjustable penis.  A penis for her every mood.  We do everything with women in mind anyway.  Every advance of civilization, everything we wear, everything we say and do is motivated by a desire to win the favor of women.  We often fail to be worth the favor they grant us but that is a sad story for another day.  Perhaps we would really love to present her with the penis she is in the mood for.  The little buddy that is fun to play with.  The flexible flyer that hits just the right spot or the monster that impales her and makes it hard to breathe.  Medical science needs to start working on "The Adjustable Penis!"

Oh.  pssst... While you're at it... can you work on... um... "reconditioning" a woman's lady box too.  Like she can do with a smaller than optimum penis; we fellas can compensate for a spacious den by working the angle for maximum sensation.  But... it would be nice to get back to the original factory settings... if ya know what I mean.  She wants that too but she does NOT want us fellas talking about it.  If she asks, just say she is perfect the way she is.  That's what she's been telling us all this time.

The Christmas Quilt

Not that this is a particularly Christmas-like quilt.  More that it was given as a gift at Christmas time. I made it for my Step-Daughter and Son-in-Law.  I included this letter:

                                                                                                                                       Christmas 2014

Dear Ashley & Ben,

          This is a quilt I made from t-shirts.  It is a simple design that takes a piece of felt and sandwiches it between the front and back of a t-shirt.  In this case I sacrificed one of those U-Haul moving blankets that have been a part of every move the family made since 2001.  Between moves they served as dog blankets.  Not to worry… I washed them before they became quilt squares.  Once I had 42 such squares, I sewed them together and added a border made from the only two colors of scrap cloth in the closet in sufficient quantity to serve the purpose.  Voila!  An instant family heirloom.

          There are t-shirts that have some meaning; Ben’s Training Squadron t-shirt, for example.  Your mother wore that shirt proudly but it was given to the project because of its relevance.  Other shirts where added because I thought they were funny or poignant. The Callahan Auto Parts shirt from the movie “Tommy Boy” or the one that says “Gone to my Happy Place.  Be back soon.” are such candidates.  Others I only selected for the color variety.  In this case you can remove them and replace them with others that mean something to you as time goes by.  It’s a fitting end to those t-shirts you really love but that have finally worn out.

          The quilt is tested and proves to be quite warm.  I suppose it is a bit heavy but that could not be helped.  In future quilts (if any) I could opt for poly-fill instead of felt… we’ll see…  Anywhooo… it was made and given with much love from me to you.  Hope it is snuggly enough.

          Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  Be warm.

                                                                             Love,

                                                                          Chris    

P.S.   Do NOT wash it.  The felt will shrink like mad and you’ll be left with a wrinkled wad of multicolored fabric the size of a washcloth.  If you must wash it; line dry it instead of using a clothes dryer.

This is how it turned out:

The quilt's flip-side is nothing more than the other side of the t-shirt from which the front image was cut: 

Some were chosen for their relevance such as this one.  It's Ben's Air Force Basic Training Squadron t-shirt: 

Some were picked from my old shirts that are now too small or too worn-out: 

Some were included because they were funny: 

The remainder were picked up at the Goodwill store for a buck apiece and chosen for their cool colors: 

Sewed on a tag with her name and the year, wrapped it up with twine and it's ready to be mailed to Okinawa.

I am rather proud of my little instant heirloom quilt.  I might make another or I may move on to other grand projects.  I've been thinking about a lawn-mower shed made from old shipping pallets.

A letter I would have liked to recieve when I was a young man, full of questions...

These are not my words.  They are the words of Thomas Jefferson.  This is a man both revered and reviled.  Some dismiss him as unworthy of any praise because he owned slaves.  Others, because they see this part of his letter as a rebuke of the exsistence of God.  I admire the man as a creative genius, critical thinker and a man of high moral character.  In 1787, in a letter to his nephew, Peter Carr, advising him in matters of religion, he wrote:

“4. Religion. Your reason is now mature enough to examine this object. In the first place, divest yourself of all bias in favor of novelty & singularity of opinion... shake off all the fears & servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. You will naturally examine first, the religion of your own country. Read the Bible, then as you would read Livy or Tacitus. The facts which are within the ordinary course of nature, you will believe on the authority of the writer, as you do those of the same kind in Livy and Tacitus. The testimony of the writer weighs in their favor, in one scale, and their not being against the laws of nature, does not weigh against them. But those facts in the Bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces. Here you must recur to the pretensions of the writer to inspiration from God. Examine upon what evidence his pretensions are founded, and whether that evidence is so strong, as that its falsehood would be more improbable than a change in the laws of nature, in the case he relates. For example in the book of Joshua we are told the sun stood still several hours. Were we to read that fact in Livy or Tacitus we should class it with their showers of blood, speaking of statues, beasts, &c. But it is said that the writer of that book was inspired. Examine therefore candidly what evidence there is of his having been inspired. The pretension is entitled to your inquiry, because millions believe it. On the other hand you are astronomer enough to know how contrary it is to the law of nature that a body revolving on its axis as the earth does, should have stopped, should not by that sudden stoppage have prostrated animals, trees, buildings, and should after a certain time have resumed its revolution, & that without a second general prostration. Is this arrest of the earth's motion, or the evidence which affirms it, most within the law of probabilities? You will next read the New Testament. It is the history of a personage called Jesus. Keep in your eye the opposite pretensions: 1, of those who say he was begotten by God, born of a virgin, suspended & reversed the laws of nature at will, & ascended bodily into heaven; and 2, of those who say he was a man of illegitimate birth, of a benevolent heart, enthusiastic mind, who set out without pretensions to divinity, ended in believing them, and was punished capitally for sedition, by being gibbeted, according to the Roman law, which punished the first commission of that offence by whipping, & the second by exile, or death in fureâ.

...Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you... In fine, I repeat, you must lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject anything, because any other persons, or description of persons, have rejected or believed it... I forgot to observe, when speaking of the New Testament, that you should read all the histories of Christ, as well of those whom a council of ecclesiastics have decided for us, to be Pseudo-evangelists, as those they named Evangelists. Because these Pseudo-evangelists pretended to inspiration, as much as the others, and you are to judge their pretensions by your own reason, and not by the reason of those ecclesiastics. Most of these are lost..."

I see no rebuke of God in this letter.  I only see a man telling a questioning young man to do his own work and draw his own conclusions.