Category: Guns and 2nd Amendment

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Patience has paid off.

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After many days of tweaking and patiently letting my computer do whatever the hell it needed to do, I now have an alternate backup.

Not only do I have an alternate backup, It’s working very nicely and for the time being all is peaceful in computer land here.

Getting the backup took days (Still scratching my head over that one…) But now the incrementals are quick, efficient, and on a par with the TimeCapsule. Even though they’re being made on a Western Digital NAS

I’m over the hassle for the time being. I’ll probably do something like put the Time Capsule into maintenance mode when I’ve got nothing better to do. For the time being I’m just going to take a breather. None of the other computers backing up on the TimeCapsule seem to be having problems. I can only assume the problem I was having is some kind of corruption in the backup for my machine alone.

I can’t stress how much everyone needs to have a backup of their computers or at least their data. That is one thing I can say Apple has done mostly right, The Apple backup system in it’s various iterations has saved my behind on a number of occasions. 

Were it not for the automated system I can’t tell you how many times I’d have been lamenting over losing all the stuff on various computers.

Whatever you do to back your system up, be consistent about it.

DAMN! 

As I was sitting here typing I pondered the question about why the WD drive was so slow. It occurred to me that I have several really fast ethernet ports on the back of my TimeCapsule. Those ports while nice, had never really mattered all that much because the rest of the devices in the network are incapable of capitalizing on their speed.

I wondered what speed if the WD drive? Sure enough, it can capitalize on the additional speed so I took a break from writing this blog and did a little reconfiguration. Now time will tell if I notice the different in access speed. 

When I plugged the WD in a year or so ago after the Buffalo drive died I just used the same port and really didn’t think about it. I was so focused on saving what data I could save I just wanted a drive that was online. In retrospect I probably should have given a little more thought to the situation.

Yet another time when I’m doing the Homer Simpson “D’OH”

Now before my non technical readers start bleeding from their eyes I’m going to change the subject.

OK I’m going to break yet another taboo… Gun Control!!!

I don’t know how many of you watch Piers Morgan… ( I don’t as a rule, I think he’s a pompous ass and wish that CNN would just shut him down.)

However, poor Piers has really been taking it on the nose the past few weeks.

Most recently he was pretty much outclassed, out thought, and out maneuvered by a young Attorney, Author, and supporter of the 2nd amendment named Ben Shapiro.

 You can view the interview here 

http://youtu.be/hJ8jcsaDK1k

I like what Mr Shapiro has to say. He’s asking for a logical description of gun control. His point that relatively few murders are committed with AR type weapons is interesting and that if you’re going to ban weapons to be consistent you really should ban handguns. They are, after all used far more often in crimes of violence than assault weapons.

It’s an interesting point and In general I agree with him.

However I believe that banning handguns in this country is a lost cause. Therefore President Obama, Vice President Biden, and the congress are choosing a weapon to “Ban” as nothing more than simple theater.

It’s a way for the government to look like they care, and they’re doing something.

They may get assault weapons banned. Then what? 

Automatic pistols are sold in California with 10 round magazines

Depending on how good a shot you are that single magazine represents 10 people dead. I’ve posted previously that the people most likely to carry out the kind of insane crimes we’ve seen in recent history are planners. They think long and hard about what they’re going to do, how they’re going to do it, and they practice.

Remember Anders Breivik in Oslo? There’s evidence suggesting that he tested his bombs on a farm outside the city limits, prior to his rampage in 2011. 

Given the proposition that these people practice their murderous plans beforehand, nothing short of a complete ban on all weapons is going to stop the violence.

But then do you really think the violence will stop?

Even if by some feat of draconian socialist government control you manage to remove all firearms from this country. If someone wants to kill another person or multiple people… explosives, incendiary  devices, bows and arrows will do the same job just fine.

So are you going to outlaw gasoline? How about basic chemistry? Gunpowder is a really simple compound to make. I’ll grant you, it wouldn’t be high yield, but the Chinese were using gunpowder in explosives 1000 years ago. And the basic recipe can be found in a StarTrek episode.

Oh wait… One of the oldest human traditions is the good old fashioned club, There goes baseball bats and forget about Cricket bats. OH wait I guess we’ll need to cut down all the trees.

My point is this, a reasonably intelligent NUTJOB who wants to make a statement, or commit suicide by cop will find a way to express their violence or make their point.

The sad part is that a lot of these people are reasonably intelligent.

They may be crazy but they’re not stupid, unlike our politicians and TV pundits.

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Sandy Hook was a tragedy but lets think shall we?

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Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner has proposed that California impose a waiting period on bullet sales.

Her sound bite on TV last night was so insane I thought my head would explode.

Most gun owners always keep a supply of ammunition around. Oh and for your information… 200, 250, 500, even 2000 rounds of ammunition isn’t that much, despite the mock breathless shocked reporting of the talking heads on CNN.

At a shooting match, you go through 250 rounds. On the shooting range you can easily fire 300 rounds. Why? because you’re practicing!

How many golf balls do you hit at the driving range? How many baseballs do you hit in a batting cage?

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If you’re practicing to hit a target, you use a lot of bullets, just like any other situation where practice improves skill.

This “Lawmaker” obviously doesn’t know what the term “Pre-Meditated” means.

NO, It doesn’t mean that you meditate seeking karmic balance before you get your gun and go shoot up a school. 

It means that you plan well in advance your actions. 

That being said a waiting or cool down period before you can purchase ammunition is pointless.

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Do you think that James Holmes wasn’t planning?

Lets see, allegedly he had guns and ammunition in his car along with body armor. He didn’t stop at the army surplus store and buy that stuff on the way to the theater.

Holmes also took the time to boobytrap his apartment and was probably not intending to come back but was trying to take out additional fire and law enforcement officers that he knew would come to investigate his residence.

So Ms. Skinner what kind of waiting period do you think you’d like to impose? A month? 6 months? A year? 

No it’s pretty obvious that you’re trying to impose and eternal ban on bullets followed by an eternal ban on guns.

The last time a bullet ban was proposed environmental protection was the vehicle. After all we don’t want lead in the environment do we?

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Adam Lanza didn’t stop at “bullets r us” on the way to the Sandy Hook school. He had all the ammo he needed because it was in the gun cabinet.

The problem is that people are trying to assign meaning and rationality to the insane actions of people that are… pardon my technical terms here, crazy as fucking hell.

There is no logic, no sense, no reason behind these events. These individuals were / are out of their minds.

I for one am sick and tired of everything being tied back to the Sandy Hook tragedy and the way that tragedy is being used to forward the agenda of the gun control lobby.

I personally find it obscene that the gun control lobby, our liberal politicians, and the media are using the murders of children to push their agenda forward.

Let’s stop engaging in knee jerk reactions. Let’s look at these tragedies in the harsh light of reality.

Crazy people, do crazy shit. There’s nothing more complicated about it than that. If we want to live in a free society we accept that there will be a certain element of risk.

A question I’d like to see answered is this.

Why is it that when I was growing up no-one would even have thought about shooting up a theater or even more unthinkable a school. What has changed in the fundamental fabric of our society that allows what was once unthinkable, to be manifested in reality?

That’s what we need to identify and fix.

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Time for journalistic responsibility.

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I couldn’t resist the Reagan poster. But you have to admit if anyone aside from James Brady could speak to the subject it’s Reagan. 

CBSNews Is reporting the New York paper responsible for publishing a map showing the addresses of registered gun owners in two NY counties has added to their grandstanding by hiring armed security guards to protect one of their offices.

The so called “journalists” are kinda missing the point.

I love the irony in that they’ve turned to armed security to protect them.

Registered gun owners are law abiding citizens which by default means that these people aren’t likely to go to the newspaper to exact revenge.

Law abiding citizens are going to choose weapons of mass destruction…. LAWYERS!

The Lawyers will be far more devastating to the newspaper than anyone with a gun.

If I were one of the people affected I’d be seriously pissed off. Not because now the world knows I have guns, but because of the invasion of privacy for no good purpose other than headlines.

Essentially this newspaper has stigmatized the gun owners of these counties. What they’ve done is tried to equate gun owners to sex offenders. “Who are the gun owners in your neighborhood?”, Who are the sex offenders in your neighborhood?”

I’m sure that the editors of the newspaper have gotten some really negative mail and deservedly so.

The gun owners affected have committed no crime, they’ve done absolutely nothing that should have resulted in the forfeiture of their privacy and yet… They’ve lost their privacy. Their homes may be targeted for potential break-ins by criminals who would like to steal guns and resell them to other criminals.

Now the newspaper is trying to look like the victim, and spin the story that they’re scared of the gun owners. 

I have a few things to say to that;

1 Buck up. You published the piece, you must have thought about the invasion of privacy you were enabling and if you didn’t well you’re not very good journalists. You need to accept the consequences and responsibility for your actions.

2 You have nothing to fear from the registered gun owners. You need to fear their attorneys.

3 In the years to come you need to fear the criminal element that breaks into these houses and manages to steal the weapons. They’re the people that are going to mug you, rape you, and shoot you. The blood of innocent victims, and the blood of the home owners occupying these houses will be on your hands.

In my opinion, a single injury or god forbid a death caused because a criminal targeted these homes should result in prosecution of the journalists involved in the story.

I’m for freedom of the press, but with that freedom also comes responsibility. 

There’s a quote from one of the Star Trek movies. “Just because we can do a thing, it doesn’t necessarily follow that we should do a thing.”

Yes, it wasn’t said by a statesman, or a scientist, or a politician. But it’s nonetheless a wonderful cautionary statement.

I suspect that the movie quote is based on something Robert Oppenheimer said;

“When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb. – J. Robert Oppenheimer”

The point is, sometimes it’s important to take a step back to look beyond your ability to act and decide if the ends are really justified. 

How many wars, how much harm would have been avoided if people had simply considered the ramifications of their actions?

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An interesting piece about mass shootings

This piece is in my opinion well written and thoughtful

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The author makes several good points about mass shootings and doesn’t engage in the rhetoric.

I don’t know how accurate his information is but I think his points are worth noting.

For the record, I’m not for assault weapon bans nor am I for additional gun control.

I’m honestly not sure what actions would make a difference in making schools in particular and our world in general safer.

The public schools I went to as a child were all open.

In the morning and at the end of the day we students came onto the grounds on our bicycles and on foot from all directions and we felt safe. It never occurred to us that there was any danger except crossing the street.

Of course, in point of fact… there wasn’t any danger. We’d all avoid strangers and none of us were kidnapped. Our neighborhoods were essentially safe, and our neighbors kept an eye on the kids going to and from school.

I’m personally disturbed by schools today that look like prisons. 

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What’s changed?

A friend and I were discussing this subject the other day. As we all know I’m opinionated and my friend patiently listened to my theory.

I think that the problem is manyfold. With the primary issues being;

1) We have pussified our male children

2) As part of that enforced PC thou shall not fight, we’ve created a situation where our young people don’t understand the consequences of violence. 

3) Life isn’t a video game, you don’t get to ‘respawn”, which is not to say video games are at fault.

What I’m saying is that if all the violence a person knows is in the context of a video game then they’re obviously going to have a skewed idea about violence.

Now let me briefly, defend my points

Children have pecking orders. Just like Wolves, Chimps, and the Great Apes. Those pecking orders are established and defined often by shoving, pushing, biting, and in the case of Chimps and Great Apes outright fighting to demonstrate dominance.

I believe this is completely normal and shouldn’t be interfered with. The adults in the species that I’ve sited observe and interfere only when it becomes apparent that someone is going to get seriously hurt.

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The winners, losers, AND the other young observing the fight for dominance all learn something.

Violence up to a point is OK as long as no-one is permanently injured.

In my personal case, I saw many fights at school. I participated in quite a few of them. In the case of the humans we learned a few lessons. 

1) Fighting hurts.

As we got older, we began to make choices about what was worth fighting over.

2) Choose your battles carefully.

3) Peace and discussing the problem is always preferable to fighting.

As I entered high school, fights were moderated by the Phys Ed coaches. They took on the role of referee. These Men made sure that there was no hitting or kicking below the belt.

They made sure that neither party got too badly banged up and when it was obvious that one party had surrendered, they made sure that the fight came to an end and both parties shook hands and acknowledged that IT was over.

The lessons that I learned then have been invaluable throughout my life.

In my fights, win lose or draw I learned that I was capable of defending myself. I developed confidence and became more self assured. 

I knew, I could take an issue to one of those coaches… Those Men… and that they’d arrange for someone I was having a problem with, and me to sit down and decide how we’d proceed. 

I knew that I was becoming a good citizen and that I was gaining the respect of those Men when I was able to talk out an issue with another guy without resorting to fighting.

I learned that consequences follow your decisions and being injured was a possible consequence of improper behavior.

I believe today, that we’ve demonized being male and cut masculinity out of the equation so much that males never get an opportunity to connect the dots between violence and the consequences.

There is NOTHING as powerful as the moment when you’re standing over your defeated opponent.

Yeah you taste your blood because he got off a good shot to your face.

But standing over your opponent savoring the adrenaline rush and your victory, you learn something else too.

You learn that your physical power can be dangerous.

If you have an iota of conscience you also have pity and compassion for that person lying on the ground.

Because at some point in your young life, you’ve been that person too.

That’s the moment you learn that peace is always a preferable choice to war.

That’s also when you look directly into the eyes of one of the coaches and your newfound knowledge is reflected in their eyes. It’s that moment that they accept you into manhood.

That was a very powerful and transformative experience for me and many of my friends. 

Perhaps part of our problem is that we no longer allow any rites of passage.

I’m not a fan of fighting… but I’m also not a fan of the emasculation that’s so prevalent in our society either.

I’d suggest that we start allowing the schoolyard fist fights. I have many memories of sitting in the chair outside the principals office waiting for judgement. 

Those lessons about consequences were as valuable as anything else I learned in school.

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There’s Snow in them mountains

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Got about 1/2 inch of snow while I was away. 

It was snowing when I came home last night & it looks like it snowed off and on all night. I can’t see my tire tracks anymore…

I got in the door, was greeted by the dogs who told me how awful it was that I’d been gone and then demanded treats to atone for their suffering… Any excuse for treats is alright by them.

I started coughing and hacking yesterday morning. Indicating that this damn cold is moving into my chest and well, by time I got home I was feeling pretty poorly.

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And why the FUCK does it always take 2 1/2 hours to get home from Orange County? What the hell?  There were no accident’s, or any other issues other than stupid people playing Indy 500 pace cars

If these morons would simply remember slower traffic to the right we’d all get to our destinations in a timely fashion. Yeah I was a little cranky. I left OC at 3:30 and didn’t get home until 6:00.

I was just in time for the Nightly News.

My goodness! 

All those poor folks in Connecticut…

At the risk of doing the same thing I’m about to accuse someone of…

The gun control advocates jumped right on the band wagon.

Pardon my bluntness but the shell casings aren’t even cold. You’d have thought that the gun control people would have at least waited a day or two before firing up their agenda and using this tragedy as a plank.

Sheesh!

I have to point out, all it would have taken is one teacher, janitor, or administrator at the school who had a concealed carry permit, and the knowledge to properly use a weapon to have minimized this tragedy.

The perpetrator in this didn’t own the guns, his mother did. 

The only way gun control can ever work is if you literally take guns … ALL guns… away from every single person in this country. To do that you have to perform a house to house search, and then illegal search and seizure of NewImageproperty.

Even after this blatant violation of American rights, you’d still have a gun problem. Because our government won’t  be able to secure the borders and smuggling operations will start immediately.

Consider Chicago. They have some of the most stringent anti-gun laws in the country. You’re not allowed to have a gun in Chicago, to put it plainly.

Yet Chicago has one of the highest number of murder by gunshot rates in the country.  Clearly zero gun policies and insanely stringent laws don’t have the deterrent effect they’ve been touted as having.

Before we go nuts about implementing gun control in the wake of this tragedy. Let us take a moment to look at all sides. Let’s make an informed and well reasoned decision based in fact not the emotionally charged opinions of the moment.

Most of all, let’s let these families grieve and bury their children in peace, lets not use these people or their tragedy to increase ratings or push political agendas.