Tag: Guns and 2nd Amendment

Posted on

Prime Time Hearings?

I’ll admit I completely missed it.

Further, I’ll admit I don’t give a shit.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the “Truth” about the Jan 6th Riots won’t come out in our lifetimes. I further believe that whatever “Truth” will be the sanitized carefully massaged version written by the victors.

As with all history… It becomes what those in power want it to be.

I’m to the point in all this where I agree with Ilhan Omar. “Some people did some things…”

I just threw up in my mouth a little typing that. Jesus! How can it be that I agree with Ilhan Omar about anything?

I am curious to see what the ratings were for the hearing. I wonder if I’m alone or if the majority of my fellow citizens are right there with me.

The people in power have spoken about the radicalization of citizens toward terrorism. I can’t think of a much better tool to radicalize average people than the tone deaf responses on real issues, that are coming out of Washington D.C.

So whatever happens from here on out is on them. All of them, regardless of party.

Reports about the guy from California who was arrested outside a Supreme Court Justices home. Armed, and with tools to enter the home has been squelched. Apparently, the man was threatening harm to a sitting justice over Roe v Wade and gun control. According to Bill Maher an article can be found in the New York Times, on page A20.

The irony of demanding more gun control was apparently lost on this individual, since he was carrying guns to harm a conservative Justice. The man is apparently a liberal, progressive, Democrat… This is probably why the story is buried on page 20. Had this moron been a Republican going after a liberal judge… The story would warrant 24/7 news coverage Front page across the planet.

Even Bill Maher called out the NYT on its bias. How biased do you have to be to have Bill Maher take offense?

At the same time a credible threat was being booked at the police station, Congress decided against providing additional security for the Justices. This while protests in front of the Justice’s homes are being permitted.

In violation of the law!

Here’s a question. How does anyone know where the Justices live in the first place? I’d imagine that bit of information would be somewhat protected, or there’d be threats all the time on a justice and their families.

There was a time when I was a boy that society taught us all a few basic things.

No matter how much you dislike or disagree with the President you will end up in jail if you threaten him or her.

You cannot threaten a member of Congress, or the Judiciary unless you want to end up in jail.

You should not attack someone physically over a difference of opinion, even if you think they’re so wrong as to be sitting to the right hand of Satan himself. That too was a quick ticket to jail.

Protests are fine, when it looks like things are getting out of hand it’s time to go home. Staying for a riot was a ticket to jail.

(As an aside, My parents told me they wouldn’t bail me out of jail for stupidity.)

These weren’t all laws… (Some of course are,) these were compromises that insured the society didn’t devolve into anarchy and the inevitable blood bath that accompanies anarchy.

We were taught that it was okay to express disagreement with the President, Congress, or the Judiciary, and that no-one could take that right from us. We were taught that the law would even protect us while legally, (Peacefully,) expressing our opinions.

My how things have changed!

I know that The Slippery Slope argument is a fallacious one. There is no way to predict all the possible outcomes of a given action or series of actions.

That being said, I would argue that The Slippery Slope argument has some merit in that it may help define a set of probabilities. One or more of those probabilities may prove false but they may also prove true.

An extreme example: If you release a known serial killer of women into a population of women and by some miracle the killer doesn’t kill. Releasing 10 serial killers of women into the same population based on a sample of one, is a slippery slope. The probability is that one or more of those killers will kill again.

In that example, no-one should be the least surprised when women start turning up dead.

When we allow people to make threats, and take no action on those threats, we shouldn’t be surprised that more threats are forthcoming. Nor should anyone be surprised when someone makes good on their threat.

When we allow months of rioting to happen and see police standing by, observing destruction, arson, and looting, and doing nothing about any of it. Should we be surprised when angry people protesting, turns into a riot? The place and reason for the riot are irrelevant (non-partisan if you will).

By allowing riots for other things without taking action, we have tacitly approved of riots, and therefore fallen down a slippery slope. Anyone could have seen what was going to happen on Jan 6th.

The onus is upon those who failed to take action based on easily predicted outcomes.

Regardless of what Then President Trump said or didn’t say, or when. Regardless of your (or Congressional leaders,) like or dislike of President Trump.

The Jan 6th riot was not only easily predictable, it was equally preventable.

President Trump himself reportedly offered to call up the National Guard to provide additional security for the Capital. He did this while encouraging people to come and express their opinions.

This implies the President Trump had made a logical prediction based on the numbers of people that were showing up. He knew he was on a slippery slope and that mitigation was warranted.

The speaker of the house Chose to put personal animus above security, and refused the National Guard presence.

Here, President Trump failed.

Regardless of The Speaker’s refusal. President Trump should have ordered The National Guard to take posts securing the Capital and the city anyway. Just in case.

By Jan 6th it was too fucking late. Had people coming into the city seen The National Guard positioned to take action, it’s probable the events of Jan 6th would have gone much differently.

Having hearings, subpoenas, contempt of congress, and all the surrounding bullshit, the Jan 6th committee is engaged in, is nothing more than trying to find someone to blame.

This all could have been resolved simply.

Realize that blame is useless. Accept what happened, and make sure that it doesn’t happen again.

President Biden was declared the winner of the election. It’s a done deal. Move the fuck on.

The members of the Jan 6th committee would have been better served returning to their offices and making sure that riots were no longer to be even tacitly approved. For any reason, at any time or place.

They could have served the people of this country by conveying that the full weight of the law would come down on anyone engaged in rioting after the events of Jan 6th, and the previous summer.

Give everyone a pass, with the proviso “Never Again!”

They could have admitted, without admitting, the blame lay with them and the permissive attitude of the previous Summer. They could have in a bi-partisan way, told the people of the country that this behavior would not be tolerated. Then actually started laying the groundwork for the much vaunted healing President Biden promised.

They needn’t have spent 8 million dollars destroying the perceived enemies of one political party. In doing so, to my eye, they have painted themselves in a not too different light than Stalin’s show trials.

I suspect they’ve offended a lot of Americans like myself who cannot believe what they’re seeing.

Congress is looking a lot more like they’re trying to usurp the Judiciary and a lot less like lawmakers. The questions raised about limits on Congressional power are very concerning to me personally.

From the transcripts I’ve skimmed, this is shaping up a lot like the Trump Impeachments.

Then, as now I was thinking… Big Deal, So WHAT?

Personally, I’d love it if one of the witnesses stood up and told the committee, “Sit Down! Shut Up! Now get to work on dealing with real issues you political hacks!”

That won’t happen. But I’d pay to see it!

I thought I’d skim more of the transcripts, Now… I don’t think I will.

I’m done. This country is lost, thankfully I won’t live long enough to see it flush itself down the shitter. 10-15 years tops and while this place will still be called America… What that once meant will be lost.

The day they come to take everyone’s guns. Make no mistake they will. Is the day that the US Constitution will finally be nothing more than toilet paper and this land will descend into a marxist totalitarian regime.

Nikita Khrushchev said the communist party would win. I think he was right.

“Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state? It’s the unspoken truth of humanity that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life’s joy in a mad scramble for power. For identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel.” ― Loki of Asgard

This just in… Only 19 million viewers, across ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, and CNN, watched the hearing. I guess I’m thinking just like the majority of American Citizens.

Apparently, most everyone had something better to do…

Posted on

Well, I watched the Biden Speech

I really don’t like The President.

However, I found that I leaned toward several of the points that he made.

I’m still processing on the points, Here’s a list of what I mostly agree with.

Shootings

The shootings must stop.

An animal that walks into a school or a store and just opens fire, is to my mind rabid. As such, they deserve nothing but to be put down as you would a rabid animal. No mercy, no negotiation.

Something that I have noticed is that these animals always seem to go for “soft” targets. Whether that is a school, a church, a bar, or a shopping center. One thing these venues have in common is that they are almost always a Gun Free Zone.

A notable exception was the church in TX where one of the parishioners dropped a shooter on a sunny Sunday morning.

More Gun Control Laws

I’m not sure that more gun control laws will prevent these kinds of shootings. The so-called “Expanded” background checks I think are toothless.

I can say from experience that the “Gun Show” loopholes are largely red herrings. I’ve never been to a gun show that was “Cash & Carry”. If you purchase a gun at a gun show, you still have to pass the background checks and the gun must be shipped to a licensed federal firearms dealer. The purchaser can pick it up after providing appropriate documentation, and paying a handling fee. The same is true of Online Sales.

Mental Health

Mental Health Care must be expanded. I honestly don’t care how that is done, but I believe it must be done.

Red Flag Laws

I’m ambivalent about red flag laws. I can see the point and their usefulness. Alternatively, I’ve read horror stories where an aggrieved party abused the law to settle a score.

There’s one story that pops to mind where in a bitter divorce, the wife activated the Red Flag law. Her husband’s collection of rare and antique guns was taken, then the guns “disappeared” from police custody. The collection was worth north of 100,000 dollars. The wife demanded her half of the cash even though the guns were gone and therefore couldn’t be sold for profit. Depending on the Red Flag law, it’s possible to misuse it in a way similar to “Swatting”.

Age Limits

I’m not sure about the age limits on gun purchases. I do applaud The President’s speechwriter for addressing the military versus non-military aspects of 18 year olds purchasing guns. Yes, we send 18 year olds to fight in wars and kill people. Then those young people come home and can’t buy a beer. I’ve always found that to be wrong. On the other hand if the drinking age is 21, then I can see the gun purchase age being 21 as well. It is for handguns in most places.

And yet, we still have the weekly Chicago teenage shooting fest. This tends to imply, that criminals will be criminals regardless of the law or their age.

I completely disagree with laws similar to the California law that proposed making it illegal to hand a weapon registered to you, to another person, or member of your family. That disrupts a father being able to take his sons hunting, or to a shooting range. It also creates a complication if, for example, you’re at a range with a buddy and would like to try out his new Glock to see if you’d like it. (I don’t know if that idiotic law passed or not in California. I’ll have to look it up.)

Gun Safety

The President mentioned trigger locks, and safe storage of weapons. I can see that. (Although trigger locks can be defeated fairly easily.) The problem I have with so called “safe storage” is that a gun locked in a safe is no damn good if someone kicks your door down in the middle of the night.

Now you know why I sleep with a baseball bat at hand and some kind of knife nearby as well. Just as with a gun, I hope I’ll never have to use either of them. (Then again, caving someone’s skull in or gutting them wouldn’t disturb the neighbors like a gunshot would.)

High Capacity Magazines

The President referenced High Capacity Magazines again. This time he defined what he meant by high capacity. I lean toward agreeing, that 30 or 40 round magazines are high capacity. I’m not sure why someone would want that kind of capacity. I don’t know enough about that particular subject to intelligently comment.

I’ve been looking a Henry Lever action rifles for hunting. Most of them, top out at 10 round capacities. Several of them top out at seven rounds. These seem like reasonable maximums if you’re hunting.

I remember being told once, (discussing the model 1911 pistol,) that if you couldn’t hit what you were aiming at with seven rounds, you probably couldn’t hit it with 70. In my family, we were taught it was a very bad thing to waste ammunition. So I might be biased about the number of rounds necessary.

Other things said

One thing I noticed in comments that popped up after The President’s speech was that a lot of people were just badmouthing The President based on some of his comments earlier in the week. He said things like he wanted to ban 9mm.

Because of his earlier statements, people heard what they wanted to hear in his address Thursday.

In this post, I’m trying to maintain focus on what he said in his speech.

If in fact some of the legislation his party is proposing contains bans on 9mm, or AR-15 rifle mechanisms then I’ll have to re-evaluate.

9mm is one of the most common calibers on the market today. Most law enforcement use them and honestly if The President did actually ban that caliber, it would create chaos.

Law enforcement goes through a lot of testing before they approve a particular gun and / or caliber for their use. Having to resupply every police force in the country would impose a large financial burden on police budgets nationwide. Including The President’s own security forces. I tend to think The President misspoke earlier in the week referencing 9mm.

Size wise, a 9mm slug isn’t terribly different from a .38 so I’m really not sure why The President spoke about 9mm at all.

Then again, time will tell.

Posted on

Why we can’t have nice things…

Four years ago I was leaving a grocery store near my apartment when a complete stranger walked up to me and commented on my watch.

It wasn’t uncommon for my colleagues to notice it or comment on it. It was not even that uncommon for a clerk in a shop to notice my watch, (particularly if they were male,) and say something like, “nice,” while looking at my wrist.

That day in front of the grocery store, this guy who appeared homeless commented about my watch in a very loud voice. He said something like, “That’s a really nice watch, what did that set you back 10 grand 15 grand?” What caught my attention was that he was speaking loudly enough for pretty much the entire shopping plaza to hear him. I’m a suspicious person, and in the back of my brain a thought popped in, “Why is this guy announcing this? Is he calling to an accomplice?”

I politely said in an equally loud voice, “Thank you for the compliment, it’s amazing how many compliments I get on this cheap $200 Hong Kong knock off. Would you like to hold it? “

At that point the man lost interest. Thank god he didn’t call my bluff.

This event was about the 3rd or 4th I’d experienced in 2 weeks. Admittedly, I wasn’t living in the best neighborhood at the time, but up to that point I hadn’t felt particularly unsafe.

The watch in question is not a knock off.

I purchased it 14 years ago for about 7K. I’d lost a rather large watch collection in a fire and decided that I simply wanted a single very nice watch that I never took off. I’d worn my watch continuously since I put it on in the store.

There were some who scolded me for wearing such a nice watch while doing yard work, working on a car, building, painting, swimming, or just living. I really thought nothing of it.

It is my watch, and since it was the only one I owned, it was easier to keep it on my wrist than to keep track of it, if I took it off.

The watch itself has held up very well. I sent it in for routine service on its tenth birthday. The service center gave it a tune up, and a clean bill of health. complemented me on two things. 1) it was in excellent shape and 2) that they’d guessed I wore it every day and thought that was very cool.

They didn’t even charge me for the replacement of 2 links in the band that had taken the brunt of a saw kickback. The watch band had saved me from a very nasty cut on my wrist. As part of the service the watch was also appraised. I was a bit shocked, and pleased, to discover that my watch had more than doubled in value.

After the repeated incidents in public where the watch garnered unwanted and intrusive attention, (it’s still considered rude to ask a stranger what they paid for something isn’t it?) I decided it was time to put my beautiful functional timepiece in a safe and buy something cheap and ubiquitous.

I’ve enjoyed the lockdowns over the past two years because if I’m around home, or in my little mountain town I’ve been able to wear my nice watch. I also wore it with complete confidence on a recent trip to Florida. Some men in Florida noticed my watch, they just nodded in appreciation, and smiled. You know… “Old School Politeness.”

My cheap watch is an Apple watch. It’s nice, but having to recharge it daily is a pain in the butt. The advantage is that everyone has one and in that homogeneity is safety.

No-one is likely to mug me for an Apple Watch.

The sadness is that my beautiful, simple, functional, watch sits in the safe. I do wear it if I’m camping, diving, or know that I’m not likely to encounter crowds of people. I also wear it more in the Winter when a jacket or long sleeves afford cover for it.

Within the past month or two, I read a news item where a man in Los Angeles had been robbed of his Rolex, at gunpoint after an induced car accident.

Today There was a report from England in The Sunday Times talking about an apparently organized group of thieves who are targeting high end watch wearers. The article is here and it’s brazen.

Most of the men report being approached by lovely women asking for their signature on a petition or something. In some cases the women become handsy and quite forward, talking non stop. In a few cases they’ve offered sex or other enticements.

Often the men are so flabbergasted they don’t realize their watch is gone until the woman has left.

I’ve heard of expensive hookers, but these guys aren’t even getting blow jobs for their 10 to 20K!

The article mentions that the thieves seem to be targeting Rolexes.

The supply of Rolexes is thin and the resale market is booming.

Rolex among other high end watches retain their value worldwide. They’re easy to transport, and with a hot resale market the thief can dump the merchandise quickly.

I’ve been jonesing for a watch that I can safely wear daily that doesn’t require recharging or batteries.

I guess you could say I’m bored with the Apple Watch and its attendant software updates, power requirements, and fiddling.

I think fondly of my nice watch. Ten years, one watch, and zero trouble. Ahh, simplicity!

I’d been looking at a nice simple Omega. But that too is a high end watch and subject to the same targeting by thieves. That being said, I may get one anyway.

I suppose that a venerable Timex might be the best way to go.

It does make me wonder how long will it be before we’re all driving the same car, all wearing the same clothes, all wearing the same watch, and all using the same mobile phone?

Is that where this is going, will we all be stuck with a “one size fits all” solution just to fight crime?

That’s not freedom. That’s the old Soviet Union, North Korea, or China. I want the freedom to have nice things without worrying about becoming a target.

I’m also just old school enough to want a concealed carry permit and a stout .45 on my hip. I’d rather leave the thieves gut shot and bleeding out on the sidewalk. (Why gut shot? Because it’s an agonizing death.) People don’t usually think of me, and mercy at the same time.

I find myself thinking that all it would take is 1 year of would be criminals stacking up in the morgues, and crime would be almost nonexistent. I figure we’d either run out of criminals, or criminals would decide crime itself was too risky.

Unfortunately, especially in California, criminals have been given the upper hand and they’re continuing to press their advantage. Apparently this is also true elsewhere in the world.

Maybe I’ll go with a Timex until I’m able to move to a state where they’ve remembered, “An armed society is a polite society.”

Maybe sometime in the near future folks will wake the hell up and realize The “Wild West” era came to a close in part because we all agreed that a robust police force was preferable to daily shoot-outs at the saloon.

That’s provided that the morons running things haven’t burned the history books or forgotten how to read them.