Exactly Why I Voted For Him

I voted twice for Barack Obama for two basic reasons. The first reason was to fix problems that we already knew we had. He's certainly done some of that. Getting bin Laden and literally saving American lives by making health care available to everyone are two of the biggest accomplishments.

But I also voted for him because he'd work to fix the problems that we didn't know about yet. The main problem I have with conservatives is they are very limp when it comes to new problems, especially if it's domestic issues. A great example of this is the gun issue. When the president took office, guns weren't really a top priority. We didn't have mass shootings every week and violence was on a downward trend. We did have the ongoing issues of gang violence and suicides but guns aren't necessarily at the root of those problems.

Then came Aurora and Sandy Hook and everything changed after that.

It certainly did for me. The chief cause of Sandy Hook was the Gun Cult. Nancy Lanza bought into their bullshit, armed herself to the teeth, and, like most "responsible" gun owners, allowed someone access to guns that should not have had them. As a result, first graders were shot in the face. Nothing was done to change our insanely loose gun laws and look what has happened since. Can anyone really remember all the mass shootings? I can't because they happen all the fucking time now.

Today, the president issued executive orders that are going to expand universal background checks and allow doctors to report some mentally ill patients to the FBI to prevent them from getting guns. His speech was extraordinary and made me proud to be an American and have this man stand up for what is right. Here is an excerpt.

President Obama, tearing up about the Sandy Hook shooting: "Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad." http://cnb.cx/1UtHVET
Posted by CNBC on Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Looking Back At A Great Year

At least 265 people were accidentally shot by children in 2015.

That works out to be an average of about 5 a week. Here's how most of the stories go...

On Monday, three days after Christmas, the four-year-old son of an Alaska state trooper had just returned home from sledding. He was playing by himself in the living room. His mom and grandmother were not far away, in the kitchen, the Alaska Dispatch News reports. But somehow the boy, William Anderson, found a gun belonging to his father. 

The gun went off and killed William.

What the Gun Cult fails to grasp is that society is filled with irresponsible people who end up falling through the cracks of loose gun laws. That's why we need the entire country to adopt the law that is already in effect in 28 states and hold gun owners criminally liable if children have access to their guns.

Research shows that these laws work. A 2005 study found that child access prevention (CAP) laws in 10 states prevented 829 injuries in 2001, saving $37 million in medical costs. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2004 found that CAP laws prevented 333 teen suicides between 1989 and 2001. Clearly, this should be a federal law.

I have a great deal of hope for 2016 in terms of gun safety. The president is going to be issuing an executive order on background checks next week. We'll find get to see how well open carry works in Texas...not that any facts or data will change the mind of the Gun Cult but at least the rest of America will. The NRA is raising their membership fee for the first time in 20 years which tells me that they are hurting for cash and expect a tougher than usual fight in this year's election.

And every single time there is a mass shooting, the levee continues to erode for the Gun Cult. We've given them a long leash (largely due to fear and emotions) but its clear that leash is shrinking.

Weak and Paranoid

This piece from The Trace is the best gift I've received this holiday season. I had no idea that there was this much progress on the issue of guns in this country. Take some time to look through each of the stories on the 10 Americans and how they are helping shift our nation's attitude about guns.

I think my favorite was Chris Lane's fantastic post entitled "3 Reasons I Went From Being A Gun Nut To Supporting Gun Control." Choice cuts...

Americans aren't completely free in many ways, and most gun owners don't seem to worry about the many laws and social customs that place limits on other aspects of their lives. I'm not free to walk down the city street completely naked (have no fear folks, that's not something I want to do), yet there are open carry advocates walking around stores with AR15s on their backs.

People willingly submit to rules and limits on their personal freedom in countless ways; it's the price of living in a civilized society without being a huge nuisance to other people. One day I realized that nudity is controlled more tightly than ownership of deadly weapons, and that seemed absurd to me. 

Indeed. It is absurd. But one has to understand that people that feel this way aren't really rational. They feel powerless without their guns. It's pretty fucking sad when you think about it. Worse...

They seem to believe that the reason a lot of people are in favor of gun control measures is because they don't value freedom and are "Sheeple," somehow rejecting the fact that more and more mass shootings and gun crimes seem to be happening and worry the rest of us. 

Some of the hardcore gun owners I met were convinced that America is heading towards an Orwellian future where no one is free and the government controls every aspect of our lives. To many of them, the only thing standing in our evil government's way is their personal stockpile of AR15s. They seem to ignore the fact that if the government went to such an authoritarian extreme, it would have the resources to effectively vaporize any suburban "patriots" who decided to raise an armed resistance against it. 

Thinking the government is out to get them is a very simple and fairly stupid way of looking at things, and not something the majority of responsible gun owners buy into, but once I found myself encountering a bunch of those characters, I decided I didn't want to be part of that culture anymore.

Bravo! Way to deprogram yourself and wake the fuck up. Why would anyone want live their life that way? Gun bloggers and the commenters that post on such sites seem to lack the capacity to reason at all. They are so overcome with emotion that it astounds me they can even function in society at all.

Too often guns are shown to be totems of power, the only way to deal with a conflict, and as a symbol of masculinity. It's stupid. I personally began to feel less powerful whenever I carried a gun. Living in fear while going about my business just made me feel weak and paranoid.

Exactly right. And it's self feeding as long as they are armed.

I challenge all gun owners to stop living in fear and being weak and paranoid. It's no way to go though life.

Here's a much better idea.

Good Guy With A Gun

How About A Mock Mass Shooting?

Any doubt that the Gun Cult should be locked up or neutralized should be gone now after this pile of shit.

Gun rights groups, in protest at Texas campus, plan mock mass shooting

I say we give these assholes what they are the most afraid of...a re-education camp. Maybe somewhere in San Francisco? :)

Gun Idolatry

End It Now

End The Gun Epidemic in America



What a fantastic call to action. The New York Times editorial board is sounding a lot like yours truly:)

Held Hostage

God Isn't Fixing This

The NRA Visit

NRA Visits Colorado Police Evidence Room To Check Up On Rifle Used In Planned Parenthood Shooting

“It’s a little shaken up, but it should be okay—thank God,” said NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre, who appeared visibly distressed while kneeling down next to the assault-style rifle and gently placing his hand on the stock. “I’ve just been worried sick since I heard about the incident. It looks like it was dropped pretty hard, and it’s barely got any bullets left, but at least it’s resting safely now. I might just sleep here tonight to keep an eye on it.” LaPierre told reporters that he would do everything he could to help the rifle return home and get back working again soon.

Good Lord, do I love the Onion.

Put Them Away

Let us be clear. Our Founders did not ratify the Second Amendment so that men like this could obtain military-grade arsenals.

Look at this face. People like this guy and the ideology that allowed him to obtain the weapons that he had are the real threats to our national security. They are far worse than ISIL or any Islamic extremist organization. They continue to pile up bodies with one party in this country vociferously defending them.

It's way past time to stop them. They need to be disarmed and put away for accessories to murder.

Good Thing He Wasn't Black

Great Words

I posted a question on Quora recently that had the distinction of being answered by world famous game designer Ernest W. Adams. His response was amazing.

The people who are claiming that you have no right to live peacefully don't seem to know what "ensure domestic tranquillity" means. It means citizens not killing each other. Of course you have a right to live peacefully; it is explicitly one of the aims of the Constitution. The Second Amendment undermines that aim by empowering people to do violence with high efficiency. 

More importantly, however, it's simply a bad idea and needs to be abolished. Owning firearms not a "natural right" (there's no such thing), it is a privilege we allow to those who are not felons. But the privilege is so consistently, violently, tragically abused by Americans, that it needs to be curtailed. The Finns and the Canadians are far more responsible with their firearms. But I don't trust an American with one.

Considering he has an average of two million views per month with over four thousand followers, his response will get widespread attention. I am most grateful.

Given the advancement in technology coupled with the fact that we manage to kill thirty thousand of our own people every year due to gun violence, we are not domestically tranquil.

How Alike They Are

The Sick Jihad

The New York Daily News has officially declared war on the Gun Cult.

A "sick jihad" indeed. Why do they want to make it easier for ISIL guys to get guns?

Good Words

Here's a recent post from Gun Ownership is a Right and A Responsibility.

The people who love their guns the most hate humanity the most, and do this nation and this world the most harm. We see it over and over and over again.... These thugs should be arrested, prosecuted and convicted of hate crimes. In fact, it's imperative that we do precisely that.

Yep. Let's start with the gun bloggers and gun blog commenters.  In fact, we should start their very own GITMO considering that they are terrorists.

Let's see if a few years in prison will chill them out:)

What Could ISIL Do To Us That We Don't Already Do To Ourselves?

Amen.

I actually think that the major terrorist organizations have gotten wise to this. How do you terrorize a society that murders 11,000 of it's own citizens every year? They're probably thinking about what it would take to truly terrorize Americans, and not seeing how it would be possible, short of acquiring a nuclear device. This is why I expect to see American allies hit again and again. That sort of tactic might bring more pressure to bear on American policy than simply adding to the carnage Americans are obviously so comfortable with.

Paris

As the world reacts with horror and sympathy to the attacks in Paris, please note that by this time tomorrow morning, the same number of US citizens will be dead due to gun violence on our own home soil. In another 36 hours, that number will double. In another 36..tripled.

And all with none of the media attention that Paris is getting right now....

Why Christians Need to Talk About Guns

Here's a great piece on how inroads might be made into the evangelical community in terms of gun safety. I was very heartened to read about Rob Schenk's conversion and the action he has taken as a result. Here's a nice bit from filmmaker Abigail Disney.

What we’re increasingly seeing is terrible fear among evangelical conservatives. I think evangelicals have always kind of seen themselves as outside the mainstream and as having less political power. There’s always been a sense among them that [someone was] coming to get them. 

And then you pour ISIS into that, and then you pour this kind of Fox news always amping up the fear, and then you have the NRA, which is also playing on that fear pretty unscrupulously. So you have people who are convinced that on any given night, someone’s going to break in and shoot them in their home, which is just statistically just as close to impossible as it gets. You’re much more likely to be hit by lightning. 

All too true. Stop being afraid.

More importantly, stop listening to the Gun Cult.

Good Words

From a gun owner on Quora...

A lot of noise. Any time there is a question like this there is a lot of noise. The truth though? We just don't know. Here are some other truths though that we should take into account. The odds of you using your gun to defend yourself or your family from a violent crime is many times smaller than the odds of your gun being used by a family member or intruder to shoot you. The odds of you using your gun to defend yourself are many times smaller than the odds of your gun being involved in an accidental discharge. The odds of you successfully defending yourself from an intruder are many times smaller than the odds of you blowing your own brains out in a suicide by gun.
 
Here is a Harvard study refuting much of the 'self defense' noise you hear all the time.
 
Gun Threats and Self-Defense Gun Use
 
Not that is it not a phony study like the John Lott Gun and Gun Crime paper which was not peer reviewed NOR was it a study but merely a self serving polemic by an avid gun aficionado.
 
You may next hear 'noise' about the UK or Australia. And ho their violent crime rate actually went up after gun control. It may interest you to know that the UK defines violent crime much more broadly than we do in the United States as they include simple assault and sexual assault (that does not have to be rape). Our FBI considers only four crimes in it's violent crimes calculations. Therefore we know right off the bat we are not comparing apples to apples.
 
The next noise you hear will be constitutional trumpet blowing ad some talk about a 'doomsday clause'. Will the first gun owner who defended my liberty from our own tyrannical government please raise your hand? No sorry David Koresh much as the government botched that raid, you were not defending anything but your own twisted beliefs at Waco. The founding fathers wanted Americans to be able to muster and form a well regulated militia, they wanted them to bring their own muskets and flintlock pistols, hell back in the day private parties owned cannon and frigates that could be issued letters of marque. We were a young country, relatively defenseless, it made total sense. Even then the founding fathers did not say, 'In order to prevent the Feds form getting too uppity citizens should own and carry around guns'. It is my belief , and I am no constitutional scholar, that future SCOTUS rulings will give state and federal governments more authority to restrict and control gun purchase and gun bearing and that this is entirely constitutional and would be a good thing.
 
Finally there will be noise about what a leftist fascist I am (not a possibility by definition but ok), and how if the Jews had some guns old Adolph couldn't have done what he did and maybe even how the U.N wants to get rid of guns and people in Europe are essentially slaves or victims.
 
To the above I have a few responses. I own two guns. I will probably but a couple more. I would gladly surrender them (for money of course) if everyone else had to and the government was collecting them. They are for me fun to shoot at the range and a relatively inexpensive ultimate insurance policy. Not for home defense on a regular basis, not for stopping tyranny (not sure my 10-22 Ruger will penetrate the Kevlar and ceramic plates on the FEMA storm troopers), not they are my insurance policy against a complete breakdown of social order-a descent in anarchy, the failure of the electric grid, a plague, the Zompacolypse, that sort of thing.
 
For those who feel bad for the Europeans, drag your butt over there and eat that delicious food, look at the smiles on their faces, soak up the Tuscan sun, dip your toes on the Amalfi Coast-then tell me about those poor stupid European slaves who compared to us really have no guns at all.
 
My last point is to bemoan the Jewish argument. If only the Jews had guns they could have....they could have what? The Polish Army had guns and training, so did the French, and guess what-the Wehrmacht rolled through them like a hot knife through butter. Guns weren't gonna stop Hitler from is insane designs on the world, not in the hands of scattered Jews or Romanovs or Slavs.
 
It's all just noise. It's ok to live having guns to feel like it's your right but please let's not pretend that we are defending the constitution-that's the militaries job-or that we are defending our family-from what? You think there are armed men out there just waiting to attack you? That is our police forces and courts job. They do a better job every year too as evidenced by declining rates of violence.

Very well said!!