This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Guns

  • Fake News? Could Well Be.

    Recently, AW1Ed posted an article detailing problems with concealed carry permits in Florida. The problem stemmed from a Florida state employee losing access to a database that was required to be checked during the permit process and not performing the required checks. This allowed a number of potentially invalid concealed carry permits to be issued. When discovered, the suspect permits were re-checked; 291 were found to have been issued in error, and were subsequently revoked. The employee responsible for the fiasco was fired.

    In a comment to AW1Ed’s article, a reader posted a comment alleging that the media had greatly exaggerated the issue. While the link posted by that commenter was to an article that I found poorly-written and somewhat confusing, I “pulled the thread” some more. And I think I’ve found, to a relatively high degree of certainty, “ground truth”.

    The initial reports on the issue were somewhat confusing. Those initial reports referred to “tens of thousands” of permits issued over a period of around a year, and also indicated that 291 were ultimately revoked. But other than to say that 291 permits had been revoked, the initial reporting didn’t give much in the way of specific, pertinent details. And the reporting frankly implied the problem was both serious and widespread.

    A subsequent follow-up article, quoting a spokesman for the pertinent Florida cabinet-level official whose department is responsible for issuing concealed carry permits in Florida, subsequently clarified the issue with those pertinent details. It turns out the issue was substantially less serious than originally reported by the media. But I doubt you’ll be seeing much in the way of follow-up from the mainstream media telling you that.

    There’s also substantial circumstantial evidence that this could be a case of deliberately slanted news. Or, alternatively, that it’s a story so inaccurate and/or exaggerated that it indeed qualifies as having been created out of whole cloth, AKA “fake news”.

    ———-

    So, what are the facts? Based on later clarification by a spokesman for Adam Putnam, the Florida Agriculture Commissioner, giving specific numbers and providing significant additional details here’s what appears to have happened:

    1. The Florida concealed carry process requires that three databases be checked before a concealed carry permit is issued. Two of them are criminal history databases: Florida Crime Information Center database (FCIC) and the National Crime Information Center database (NCIC). The third is the Federal firearms disqualification database, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

    2. During the period in question – February 2016 to March 2017 – 349,923 applications for a concealed carry permit were submitted in Florida. The two criminal databases, FCIC and NCIC, were checked in all cases.

    3. In 365 cases, NCIS was not checked. A single Florida employee was responsible for performing these 365 checks, but failed to do so. Permits were issued in these cases which might have been invalid. In the other 349,558 cases, all 3 required databases were indeed checked.

    4. When the matter was discovered, all 365 suspect cases were audited. A total of 291 of those cases were found on investigation to be problematic; the concealed carry permits for those 291 cases were revoked.

    5. The employee who failed to perform their duties in the 365 cases in question no longer works there. Other reporting indicates they were fired, presumably for cause.

    Bottom line: one Florida employee failed to do their job, apparently for a relatively short period of time.

    Specifically, for some undefined but apparently fairly short period of time, a Florida employee lost access to NICS and failed to perform 365 checks in that database associated with the Florida concealed carry permit process – out of a total of 349,923 such checks performed during the overall period of interest. That was later discovered, and the issue was corrected by doing the required checks and revoking 291 permits that apparently were issued in error. The employee is now a former employee.

    ———-

    So, what’s the problem with the initial reporting? I’ll tell you.

    Other than the fact that the reporting was incomplete, it was also so slanted as to be effectively misleading – misleading to the degree that the author’s motive becomes suspect. Here’s how an AP article, apparently carried by (or based on an article in) the Tampa Bay Times, characterized the situation. In the quote below, I’ve redacted the name of the article’s author; follow the link if you want to see it.

    Headline: Florida stopped doing gun permit checks for more than a year
    By (name omitted), Associated Press
    Posted: 8:31 PM, June 08, 2018
    Updated: 10:18 AM, June 09, 2018

    TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – For more than a year, Florida failed to do national background checks that could have disqualified people from gaining a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

    The lapse, revealed in an internal report that was not widely known about until Friday, occurred during a time period when there was a significant surge in the number of people seeking permission to legally carry a concealed weapon. Florida does not allow the open carry of weapons, but more than 1.9 million have permits to carry guns and weapons in public if they are concealed.

    The state ultimately revoked 291 permits and fired an employee blamed for the lapse after an inspector general’s report detailing the problem was sent in June 2017 to top officials in the department who oversee the program. The Tampa Bay Times was the first to publish information about the report, which pointed out that the state failed to check the National Instant Criminal Background Check System from February 2016 to March 2017.

    The article continues for several more paragraphs. Nowhere does it indicate that the problem was in reality restricted to a failure to conduct 365 checks, nor that barely 1 in 1,000 concealed carry permits didn’t have one of three required checks.

    Rather, the average reader of that article would conclude that the problem applied to a far larger number of applications – indeed, that the process of issuing concealed carry permits in Florida was broken entirely. That’s not the case at all. The facts indicate that one employee failed to perform required background checks in roughly 1 application out of a thousand.

    ———-

    So, where’s the evidence that this might be polically-motivated and slanted (or outright fake) news? Well, check the update timestamp of the AP article – then check the time stamp of the clarification article released by the Florida Agricultural Commissioner’s spokesman. The AP article was last updated over 12 hours after the clarification – long after the information in the clarification was available. As of about an hour ago, the AP article still did not include those significant and relevant facts.

    Further, Mr. Putnam is a candidate for Governor in Florida’s next gubernatorial election. He’s not liberal, and has made it a point to streamline Florida’s concealed carry permit process. Do you really think the media wants to see him elected, given the media’s documented leftward tilt since at least the Eisenhower administration? Might a sensationalist article leading people to believe, erroneously, that his office was issuing concealed carry permits without due diligence hurt his chances for election?

    ———-

    I’m not prepared to state, flatly, that this was a political hit job and qualifies as fabricated news. Maybe it’s just abysmally sloppy reporting. But there’s an old saying: “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck . . . . “

    Consider the facts and decide for yourself.

  • A good guy with a gun in Oklahoma

    A number of folks have sent us links in regards to an active shooter in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma who entered a restaurant and opened fire wounding a mother and her daughter. An armed citizen used his own gun to stop the shooter;

    Another person at the establishment confronted the shooter with a pistol and ultimately shot the suspect who later died from injuries.

    OKCPD tweeted, “ALERT: The only confirmed fatality is the suspect. He was apparently shot-to-death by an armed citizen. Three citizens were injured, two of whom were shot. A large number of witnesses are detained. There is no indication of terrorism at this point.”

    From Daily Wire, police credit the armed citizen with saving lives;

    “It’s a blessing this was stopped [when it was] who knew when this guy was going to stop shooting people,” Captain Bo Matthews told KOCO.

  • Guest post; Is there a God-given right to own guns?

    From Graybeard;

    There has been an assumption that the right to bear arms is a God-given right. Lately several people have asserted that there is no such right. Is this a tenable position for one in the Judeo-Christian tradition? Obviously, for one who does not believe in God there can be no God-given rights. For those outside the Judeo-Christian tradition I cannot presume to speak. But for those within the Judeo-Christian tradition there are some considerations which, I believe, lead us to the position that God has, indeed, given us the right to own firearms.
    Genesis 1:27 is foundational to the Judeo-Christian view of mankind:

    “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

    The doctrine of mankind, men and women, being created in the image of God is one of the core doctrines for Judeo-Christian theology. Because we are created in God’s image, there is a dignity and a sanctity inherent in every human being. Germain to our consideration is a principle built upon this doctrine found in Genesis 9:5-6:

    “(5) Surely I will require your lifeblood; from every beast I will require it. And from every man, from every man’s brother I will require the life of man.

    (6) “Whoever sheds man’s blood,
    By man his blood shall be shed,
    For in the image of God
    He made man.”

    The consequence of taking an innocent person’s life is that the murderer’s life is forfeit – the murderer must be put to death – and the reason for this principle is explicitly tied to the fact that mankind is made in the image of God. Numbers 35:31 says:

    “Moreover, you shall not take ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death, but he shall surely be put to death.”

    There is no other Scripturally acceptable punishment for one who intentionally kills an innocent human being.

    By virtue of being created in the image of God, that is, everyone has a right to live unless one violates one of a set of conditions found in Scripture. One of these conditions pertinent to our consideration is in Exodus 22:2

    (2) “If the thief is caught while breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there will be no bloodguiltiness on his account.”

    That is, if one, in an attempt to stop a theft, kills the thief then that person is not guilty of murder and no penalty for shedding blood is due them. The concept of what constitutes a “thief” may be seen in Jesus’ words in the first part of John 10:10:

    “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;…”

    It is evident, therefore, that in addition to having the right to life by virtue of being made in the image of God, Judeo-Christian theology also supports the right to self-defense and defense of one’s property even to the point of killing the thief or assailant.

    Being prepared to defend one’s self, family, and property is something practiced by the Israelites from Abram on. It is recorded in Genesis 14:14:

    “When Abram heard that his relative had been taken captive, he led out his trained men, born in his house, three hundred and eighteen, and went in pursuit as far as Dan.”

    Abram (Abraham) had 318 men in his own household trained to fight. Later Jacob, speaking to Joseph, says in Genesis 48:22:

    “I give you one portion more than your brothers, which I took from the hand of the Amorite with my sword and my bow.”

    In passing he mentions the fact that he had weapons, and used them when he had to fight with the Amorites. The possession of swords and bows was a given among the Israelites. To defend themselves and their families they owned weapons – both close-range, that is a sword, and long-range, a bow.

    Again, in Luke 22:35ff we read:

    (35) And He said to them, “When I sent you out without money belt and bag and sandals, you did not lack anything, did you?” They said, “No, nothing.” (36) And He said to them, “But now, whoever has a money belt is to take it along, likewise also a bag, and whoever has no sword is to sell his coat and buy one. (37) For I tell you that this which is written must be fulfilled in Me, ‘And He was numbered with transgressors’; for that which refers to Me has its fulfillment.” (38) They said, “Lord, look, here are two swords.” And He said to them, “It is enough.”
    This is a puzzling Scripture. One understanding is that in order to be “numbered with transgressors” as was prophesied Jesus needed the disciples to have swords. This does not take into account the fact that Jesus was crucified with two thieves, nor Paul’s declaration in 2 Corinthians 5:21

    “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

    Other considerations could be brought to bear. But another understanding is that Jesus was preparing His disciples for a different mode of operation from how He had them working previously. Instead of going in total dependence upon the gifts from others, they were to take their money and a bag of supplies and a sword with which to defend themselves from brigands on the way. This second understanding is in keeping with how the Patriarchs and later Israelites lived.

    It is arguable, then, that owning weapons was considered normal and natural. If Luke 22:36 is not considered to be a figurative statement, the ownership of a weapon even seems to have the sanction of Jesus Himself.

    If mankind is created in the image of God, both male and female, and if by virtue of that have a right to life and a right to self-defense, then there also exists for all mankind the right to possess the means to defend oneself. Historically we find that this involved, from the time of the Patriarchs through the time of Christ, the possession of a weapon such as a sword or bow. A sword is a close-quarters weapon, a bow is a long-range weapon. In our modern world the practical analogs would be a pistol and a long-gun; rifle or shotgun.

    That is, if it being made in the image of God bestows the God-given right to life, and if that entails the God-given right to self-defense, then it also entails that it is a God-given right to possess the means to defend oneself, that is that there is a God-given right to own a firearm.

    Therefore, we find that it is a tenable position for those in the Judeo-Christian tradition to profess that we have a God-given right to own a gun.

  • US military surplus 1911s available. Almost.

    1911

    Been waiting to grab one of the Army’s surplus M1911 .45 caliber pistols? The wait is nearly over.

    Army Times reports the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) announced it would sell 8,000 1911 .45 ACP pistols that have been in storage. That number has dropped from the originally announced 10,000 pistols.

    And not all the 8,000 to be made available will be up for purchase by those who are selected. Some have been judged “unusual and worthy of being auctioned,” according to the CMP.

    To get one of these pieces of U.S. military history, you’ll have to fill out the order documents posted on 4 June on the CMP website. If you have questions, on that date — and only beginning on that date — you can call: 256-835-8455, ext. 461, or email at cmp1911@thecmp.org

    The forms must be postmarked between 4 Sept and 4 Oct. Only one form per person is allowed. You must be a U.S. citizen, a member of a CMP affiliated club and provide proof of participation in a marksmanship activity.

    The CMP 1911s must be transferred through a Federal Firearms Licensed dealer with a completed purchaser background check.

    The CMP will randomly pick “winners” for the surplus 1911s on Oct. 5, where customers will be contacted and be allowed to select the grade of pistol they wish to purchase.

    The pricing is as follows and includes shipping:

    Service Grade $1,050: Pistol may exhibit minor pitting and wear on exterior surfaces and friction surfaces. Grips are complete with no cracks. Pistol is in issuable condition.

    Field Grade $950: Pistol may exhibit minor rust, pitting, and wear on exterior surfaces and friction surfaces. Grips are complete with no cracks. Pistol is in issuable condition.

    Rack Grade $850: Pistol will exhibit rust, pitting, and wear on exterior surfaces and friction surfaces. Grips may be incomplete and exhibit cracks. Pistol requires minor work to return to issuable condition.

    Auction Grade: The condition of the auction pistol will be described when posted for auction. Note: If you have already purchased a 1911 from CMP you will not be allowed to purchase an auction 1911. If you purchase an auction 1911, your name will be pulled from the sequenced list. No repeat purchasers are allowed until all orders received have been filled.

    I have a couple 1911s, but none from the military. A piece of American history would be a welcome addition to my gunsafe. Now to convince CINC-House…

    Updated from: https://www.azuse.cloud/?p=76179

  • Effingham County to become sanctuary for 2nd Amendment

    Ex-PH2 sends us a link to the Effingham Daily News which reports that the Effingham County, Illinois Board is contemplating local legislation that would make the county a sanctuary for gun owners.

    [Effingham County State’s Attorney Bryan] Kibler explained the goal is to protect those people affected by future state legislation by prohibiting the county from enforcing “unconstitutional actions.” He drew a parallel with actions in other fields.

    “If you can be a sanctuary county for undocumented immigrants, why can’t you be one for firearms?” Kibler said.

    He explained that the section, like the rest of the resolution, is largely symbolic.

    “I was in a really surly mood when they sent that to me,” said Kibler.

    The legislative committee voted 8-1 on Monday to advance the resolution to the full county board. Board Member Karen Luchtefeld voted no, saying she hadn’t had enough time to review the resolution.

    From WANDTV;

    “We’re southern Illinois people,” [Lew] Slater said. “We come from all walks of life and it seems like we get a lot of laws crammed down on us and they don’t appear to be very well thought out.”

    And that’s where some members of the Effingham County Board want to step in.

    “Effingham County is a gun-friendly county,” said vice chairman David Campbell.

    Campbell proposed a resolution to make Effingham County a sanctuary county — not for undocumented immigrants — but for gun owners.

    “We’re standing with the Second Amendment firmly and we’re backing the Constitution,” Campbell said.

  • Brenna Spencer’s graduation photo

    Brenna Spencer’s graduation photo

    Mick sends us a link to Fox News about young Brenna Spencer who graduates from the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga this year and she decided to take a unique photograph to remember the occasion.

    Of course, the gun-grabbing fascists aren’t pleased;

    Despite receiving what she called a surprising “amount of hate” on social media, Brenna Spencer, 22, says she has no regrets.

    “I know the Tennessee state gun codes …. I carry everywhere that I’m allowed to carry,” the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga student said in an interview.

    On Twitter, where Spencer’s profile states that “political correctness offends me,” she posted the provocative photo with the caption: “I don’t take normal college graduation photos…”

    From ABC News;

    Spencer’s friend took the photo outside the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga but she did not enter the facility with her handgun, and therefore did not go through any kind of museum security, she told ABC.

    “I know the Tennessee state gun codes,” Spencer, who is set to graduate in May with a major in communications and a minor in political science, said.

  • Read It and Weep, Gungrabbers

    I don’t know if it’s a good title or not, but maybe it will get the attention of the dumber people on the planet.

    The most recent attempts by the Leftred media to distort something into hysterics failed them again. I see the same idiocy being exposed at websites devoted to exposing the fraud in so-called climate science, which has deteriorated and declined into a pseudo-religion aimed at manipulating the minds of the uninformed into following false paths. There is a strange thing going on there, having to do with controlling what people “believe” in the most Medieval sense. The propaganda rhetoric wears thin when you can’t keep the home fires burning.

    In our most recent episode of Strange Violence in February, the quarreling and phony virtue signaling were rampant. The false narratives being pushed by major media networks and newspapers in what appeared to be an effort to create a theater of blood and gore was an over-the-top attempt to stir the fears and angst of the viewing public. But when there is no blood and gore, as in the more recent Maryland event, when the bad guy turned out to be a teen who stole his father’s gun to go after a girl who broke up with him, or when a serial bomber blows himself to bits before he gets caught, then they have nothing to turn into a bloody spectacle that suits their need to push a political agenda, i.e., take away what are rightfully and legally your possessions and civil rights with no due process.

    Would these same fearful people like it if they were muzzled by the same methods they seek to inflict on others? Perhaps we should give that a try. After all, the Reich in Hitler’s Germany controlled what the press was allowed to print, which is why news about the death camps never reached the average German.

    It was the same in the Soviet Union. Izvestia was the daily broadsheet newspaper in Russia. It was the newspaper of record in the Soviet Union from 1917 until the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. The word “izvestiya“in Russian means “delivered messages”. It also means “disambiguation”. It was the Soviets’ major propaganda rag, along with Pravda, the other official news rag of the Soviets, starting in 1912. Pravda (“Truth”) was a Russian broadsheet newspaper, formerly the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the country with a circulation of 11 million. Since these were the only news resources available and were controlled by the Soviet government, only state-approved info was published in them. The counterpoint to all of that was Radio Free Europe, which broadcast news about the world outside the Iron Curtain to all those countries behind it, including East Germany.

    If you see a pattern of deceit in the stories presented by many media outlets, you are correct. Distort the real stories, make stuff up to scare the uninformed and naive, stifle civil rights, violate Constitutional laws, pretentiously parade children and/or victims of some terrible event in front of a camera to promote this obviously falsehood-laden objective, all to suit your own agenda – well, it’s all there, but it isn’t working quite so well these days.

    I have seldom been as disgusted with so-called reporters as I have been since mid-February, when the Leftred media’s hastily-concocted Theater of Blood fell apart within a 32-hour period as the verifiable facts came to light, more and more quickly. The result was that the Leftred media looked exactly like what they are: a bunch of amateurs barely out of junior high school pretending to be important.

    The Leftreds in news media have been counting on having control of it all for some time now. Unfortunately for them, it is not working quite as well as they had hoped. They have engaged in continuing efforts to act as master manipulators of the news and of opinions, and yet, for every exaggeration and false statement that they have concocted out of whole cloth, their opposition has filed a full story with all the facts available and shot down their tales of Jack the Fake Giant Killer and his Fake Exploding Beans. Every damned time!!

    Why are they failing? Their own vanity that sends them dashing to the internet and instant media outlets with angst-ridden horror stories of death and destruction has blinded them to the mere fact that the same media outlets are available to anyone who has more facts and better information and takes the time to present it correctly, without the speculation, the hysterics and the hyperbole, without the fabricated stories, and without the desperate need to be in control of the minds of public viewers.

    Yesterday (3/24/2018), a quickly-planned protest took place, addressing everything about gun violence except for the fact that many of the items howled about (e.g., universal background checks) are already in place, and the real problem is caused by people, not by inanimate objects.  800,000++ people, most of them reportedly under the age of 18, went to Washington, DC for this protest.. In Chicago, about 85,000 people (mostly under 18) held their own protest. (It did not look like that many, frankly. I’ve seen the crowds at Lollapalooza.)

    Per the news reports, other protests took place in other cities. There were protests held in Houston, NYC, Boston, etc., but 800++ cities around the world? Berlin, Paris, Hong Kong and London only count as four. Where’s the list? Some of those protest had 10 or 15 people attending. Wow. I’ve had more people at a spontaneous Friday PM dinner after work. And frankly, only one resource noted that a pro-gun protest took place in Salt Lake City.

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/03/24/aerial-images-around-world-shows-scope-march-our-lives/455891002/

    Sorry, but if these protests take place outside the USA borders, I don’t give a crap about them. They are not involved in either our legal processes or our laws, nor should they be. If the media cannot produce an accurate tally of people, even by square yard count, or a true list of those 800++ cities, then it’s just more of their idiot scare tactics, which are repeatedly failing. I can quickly get a list of the 10 largest cities in the world, and a count of cities worldwide (4,416) , so where’s that list of 800 cities with protests?

    I want to be clear on this issue.

    It is absolutely appropriate to protest the violence.

    That is the real issue, not some inanimate object that seems targeted by the brainwashed who believe that guns are somehow responsible for these things, but fail to acknowledge that it is people who abuse them. There is no doubt in my mind that there is a problem with people who misuse these inanimate objects. Need I remind anyone that in that hostage event at a French grocery store yesterday, the French policeman was stabbed, as well as shot? Why is no one blaming the knife used to stab the policeman? Must I add that in the Austin violence last week, homemade explosives were used to kill people, and the bomber was killed by his own instrument?

    The real message – that it is violence, not guns, which is the problem – is not being heard at all. Violence is caused by people who are out of control, with no one stopping them before it starts. They can and do use anything available to cause destruction.

    When does that sink in? WHEN????

    The people who are promoting the wrong attitude want this narrative of fear of an inanimate object to be the issue, first and foremost.

    We who know better and disagree with that narrative must ensure that this disinformation campaign to cloud the truth becomes weaker and weaker and finally, fizzles to nothing by speaking the truth: – that is it people who are the cause of violence.

    Accordingly, I’m providing links to three articles by different authors, in separate publications, including a 1994 article in The Atlantic when the Brady Bill was signed, providing various viewpoints on why gun control laws do not work.

    Brazilians are leaning toward increasing access to guns to combat increasing gun violence.  https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/03/28/472157969/brazil-has-nearly-60-000-murders-and-it-may-relax-gun-laws

    Brazil is the murder capital of the world, with 60,000 people dying per year, per Bloomberg News article 2018-3-20. Brazilians are now supporting access to guns for self-defense. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-20/in-world-s-murder-capital-brazilians-are-ready-to-buy-some-guns

    The false promise of gun control, from The Atlantic in 1994: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1994/03/the-false-promise-of-gun-control/306744/

    “Gun-control laws don’t work. What is worse, they act perversely. While legitimate users of firearms encounter intense regulation, scrutiny, and bureaucratic control, illicit markets easily adapt to whatever difficulties a free society throws in their way.” – article.

    It’s not the guns that are the problem, you incredible morons.

    It’s not the means of destruction that bear the blame, you despicable cretins.

    It’s the people using them.

    Now what are YOU going to do about that?

  • The Difference Between a Right and a Choice

    Seems there’s this desperate need to impress everyone, by people in the business of so-called journalism, being inflicted upon us these days with how simpatico they are, how in tune they are to whatever they think the current vox populi consists of.

    It’s baloney. It’s virtue signaling from a bunch of self-involved, attention-grabbing twits and nothing else.

    This involves the most recent column in the Chitown Tribune by someone named Dan Moran, a columnist, who says he inherited a bunch of guns from various members of his family. He says that he used to hunt when much younger, but doesn’t go hunting now. What this was leading up to was his desperate need to let the silly, whining, self-terrorized gungrabbers – people who are just positive that they will be next (and probably have wet dreams about it, too) – that he’s on their side, whatever that means. So he informs us, after a prolonged whine of excuses with examples, that he made a date with the local po-po to turn in his guns for destruction, and was assured they were put in the evidence locker, slated for destruction. He says he got a notice to that effect, too.

    “Hey, LOOK!” says he, “I got rid of all of those nasty, scary inanimate objects that can’t function without a live human handling them! I’m such a good guy!  Pat me on the back! Buy me a pizza! I’m on your side! I’m one of you!”

    He could have simply taken them to the nearest gun shop with his FOID and sold them to a dealer, taken home the cash, and walked away feeling maybe just as virtuous, but did he do that?  No. He had to broadcast to everyone what a wonderful guy he is for being so abundantly stupid that he missed that very obvious other choice. His excuse was that no one could get hurt by them now. He did not say whether or not anyone ever had been hurt by them prior to his Virtue Signaling Episode IIIa/IV(b).

    As stultifyingly dumb as that makes him, I took the time to peruse the language of the U.S. Constitution, trying to find anything that says ownership of weapons of any kind is a requirement for U.S. citizenship.  I found nothing. It is a choice we have. Some of us want them. Some do not.

    Here’s what I found with a little effort on my part: “….provide for the common defence….”

    That’s easy to understand. In Them There Olden Times, the militia ranks were filled by local people, the common people, who came here to escape the grinding tyranny of despotic rulers like Oliver Cromwell and Mary Tudor in the beginning of that exodus, and the Prince Regent later on, who succeeded his crazypants father, and the horrifying bloodbath that Robespierre inflicted on anyone who caught his eye. As time went on, as we know, coming here was to find a way out of famine and poverty when late blight fungus killed off the main source of food for the Irish and Swift wrote his snarky essay ‘A Modest Proposal’.  People came here from all over, set up housekeeping and started farms and shops and businesses, which is what this country was about then and always has been, no matter how much the leftreds want to chop it into splinters. But I digress.

    The phrase ‘for the common defence’ in that opening paragraph is preceded by “We, the People”, meaning all of us, not just certain ones.

    Many of Those in High Places now and in the past seem to think that this is inapplicable now, that they know better than we do what we need and/or want.. On the contrary: it is absolutely applicable now, more than ever. It gives us choices. Frankly, not one of those greedy, self-serving slobs in office has the faintest idea what I need or want.

    We have the right to decide what to do with our lives, what we want to do for a living, eat, wear, read, etc., where we want to live, and whether or not we want to serve in the military, among other things. Yes, we have had drafts in the past but at present we do not. Military service is a choice. I made that choice twice, and then the war was over, so I left the military and did other things.

    And that brings me to this bit of thoughtful prose: the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America: …the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed.

    Read that carefully. It says the right…to bear arms. Nowhere in that Amendment does it say must bear arms.  It is a choice. You can choose to have weapons, or choose not to.

    As I have repeatedly indicated, a weapon can be anything from a 9-inch cast iron skillet and some hornet spray or cooking spray with flour, to a multi-round firing rifle that may or may not be useful for hunting in the autumn, winter and/or spring (turkeys!) I usually do my hunting at the grocery stores and farmers’ markets, although I have found a few turkeys in the aisles at the local bank and Walmart. I’m quite sure that I can use my short sword to carve a turkey, if I have to.

    Therefore, when I ran across that virtue-signaling, self-important half page op-ed by this Tribune twit, letting all of us know what a saint he is for being dumber than socks on an elephant, my response was to point and laugh, because Danny boy, you had other choices but you didn’t take them.  http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/lake-county-news-sun/opinion/ct-lns-moran-never-again-walkout-st-0314-20180313-story.html

    That does not make you virtuous, Dan. It makes you desperate for attention and praise which, in my view, you don’t deserve. You could have sold those guns to a dealership and donated the cash to a really good cause.

    But you didn’t.

    That, you butthead, makes you so stupid you don’t even know you’re alive.