[HuffingtonPost] In 2012, 986 mass shootings ago, I wrote these words: "In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it's easy to talk about guns. But it's time to talk about mental illness."
Now it's time to talk about guns. It's talk like this that makes the words of the Democratic candidates at the debate tonight a lie. "Oh no, we just want sensible control, we don't want to take peoples' guns." Horse hockey. It's exactly what they want, and articles like this are the proof of that.
In the wake of the Umpqua Community College shooting, I had the unenviable task of appearing on CNN to defend the shooter's mother, Laurel Harper, for sharing an entirely legal interest in firearms with her son.
Legal, but stupid.
Should Harper be blamed for her son's actions? Of course not. Millions of parents share an interest in guns with their children. Harper did not have a crystal ball that could predict her son would become a mass shooter; in fact, it could be argued that mothers are the worst people to ask about their children's weaknesses, because we prefer to focus, like Harper did, on our children's strengths. Harper, who is grieving the loss of her son, the tenth victim of the shooting, couldn't predict a mass shooting any better than anyone else can.
But was Harper irresponsible in how she owned and stored her guns? The clear answer is yes. Not because her son had a mental illness. Because all parents who own and store guns in their homes are irresponsible, regardless of whether anyone in the family has a mental illness.
What causes mass shootings? The same thing that causes 61% of all deaths by gun violence (suicides): easy access to guns. If no one in your family has suffered the negative effects of gun ownership, it's not because you are a "responsible gun owner." You are just lucky. I will never deny the demographic fact that more firearms mean more deaths by firearms. Luck may play into whether you can survive in a household that has guns, but gun safety and a willingness to use firearms in the face of hostility likely has much more to do with it than luck.
The research on guns and gun ownership is clear. Having firearms in your home makes everyone who lives there more likely to be a victim of gun violence, period. That's irresponsible parenting. No, irresponsible parenting is failing to teach your children about gun safety and firearms' utility.
In the wake of other clear public health risks, Americans have acted rationally. For example, seatbelts save lives, so we pass laws that require car drivers to buckle up, and accident-related deaths go down. Could you point out the seatbelt amendment in the US Constitution?
But guns? Pry them from our cold, dead fingers. You first.
I live in Idaho, a state where the Second Amendment is revered only slightly less than the Bible. I have enjoyed shooting as a sport; in fact, my brothers taught marksmanship at Boy Scout camps for years. I also enjoy hunting, and many of my friends provide food for their families by heading to the hills with their .22s each October.
But as I've learned more about the risks of storing guns in the home, my views on gun control have evolved.
Why? If anyone you've known, Ms Editorialist, had been shot by a relative or acquaintance, you would have said so, leaving the reader to conclude that in your personal experience being in a household that contains guns is a low risk situation. So why the baseless fear?
I've avoided talking publicly about guns for this simple reason: I am afraid one of my Second Amendment-worshipping, gun-toting neighbors will shoot me. As I wrote this essay, my husband, reading over my shoulder, said, "Let's update our wills before you publish." Nice. Any other spouse would have told him to STFU.
She also doesn't mention her neighbours shooting or being shot by anyone. This sounds like paranoia, not reasoned concern.
But our fear speaks volumes about why we need to talk about guns. In fact, we all are afraid--to go to the store, to the movie theater, to school. It's time to face that fear head on and do something about it. Get a gun.
I believe that Americans should be allowed to own any type of gun they want to--as long as they are stored in locked cases at gun clubs. Want to shoot a semiautomatic and feel like an action movie hero? Knock yourself out--at the gun club. Want to take your kids hunting for the weekend? Check out your hunting rifles--from the gun club. Gun clubs all forbid firing a semiautomatic faster than one round a second. Your statement tells me you are lying about your background with regard to guns. And having a gun at a gun club defeats the whole purpose behind self defense. When a bad guy breaks into your home, you had better have advance warning sufficient enough to go get your firearms, or you'd best be prepared to slug it out: bring a fist or a knife to a gun fight.
If Adam and Nancy Lanza had bonded over guns at a club instead of at home, 20 children would likely be enjoying fourth grade this fall. If Laurel Harper and Chris Mercer had bonded over guns at a club instead of at home, 10 people would likely still be alive today and turning in their midterm writing assignments. If guns were stored at a gun club instead of at home, more than 19,000 people who died by suicide might have had a chance to get the mental healthcare they desperately needed. Adam, as I understand it, was a psychopath to begin with. Hugs and affection only go so far. And as I recall, Nancy did try to teach Adam about gun safety, but the lesson failed.
Our Founding Fathers were reasonable men. They surely never imagined a country where an amendment designed to keep the British from invading, at a time when guns could only fire one shot at a time with questionable accuracy, would lead to almost weekly mass shootings of innocent citizens. One of the great lies perpetuated by the left is that the Founding Fathers would have reconsidered the 2nd Amendment due to the greater amount of damage those rifles can cause. They leave out the fact the they understood the fundamental nature of application of force by a government, and semiautomatics or muskets, would have written in the 2nd Amendment anyway. It's about being against tyranny, and having the means to defeat tyranny.
I've read that American rifles were the cutting edge technology of the time, much better than the weapons fielded by the British army. This has implications for current discussions on what the Founding Fathers would or would not have imagined. tl:dr: What badanov said, above.
I hope that Laurel Harper will join moms across America in demanding action from Congress on gun control. I'm one of those moms. Please don't shoot me. Long as you don't fire on me, or send paid thugs to do your bidding, you're good.
#2
The 2nd Amendment says "... shall not be infringed".
Every single "gun control" initiative is purely about "infringing".
Every attempt to "infringe" should be immediately killed off at birth.
The only initiative that should ever be entertained is one to repeal the 2nd Amendment. See 21st Amendment (which repealed the 18th Amendment) as a precedent.
I can just barely conceive of a day in which the 2nd Amendment might be facing repeal - but that is what it should take.
All attempts to "infringe" should be strangled in their crib.
#4
They surely never imagined a country where an amendment designed to keep the British from invading,
The Constitutional protection of guns is only secondarily about keeping the British from invading: it contains no provision for a standing army, but instead expects the people to come together to resist threats. The reason there was no standing army was the well-founded concern that such an army could be used by the central government to suppress the people. The Second Amendment was and is to protect the people from their 'own' government.
#6
They can write 1,000 articles. Each one will say exactly the same thing - someone committed a crime with a gun, so lets take guns away from the people who never have and never will commit a crime.
The answer is no. Yesterday it was 'no,' and tomorrow it will still be 'no.'
#7
Skip you will never hear of those killed with seat belts on or die because of the seat belts. When it's the government you can't believe any numbers they come up with anyway.
Girandoni Repeating Air Rifle - 1780
ROF - 22 in 30 seconds, .51 caliber, magazine fed
Nock Gun - 1779
7 rounds per discharge
Blunderbuss, Dragon handgun
People had been figuring out different methods to fire multiple bullets in one shot since before Champlain and three others decimated the center of an enemy Indian line which outnumbered their own war party by at least two to one. Hell, the Byzantiums were defending Constantinople with flamethrowers, which I am sure were wounding/killing numbers of enemy in a short time.
It was really the evolution of the bullet, that is, the self contained cartridge.
Evolved. Love that term. How many species evolved into oblivion. Every time I come across that word from these Confessions of Collectivist Sins, I think Panda.
Hugo Spaulding, writing in the Institute for the Study of War [1] notes that Vladimir Putin is challenging president Obama across a very broad strategic front. This is quite a contrast to the media perception that their confrontation is limited largely to Syria. He writes:
Russia's Syrian campaign is part of larger confrontation with the U.S. and NATO. In addition to expanding the scope of its operations to bolster the regime of Bashar al-Assad, Russia issued an open challenge to NATO through repeated violations of Turkish airspace, the shadowing of U.S. Predator drones in Syria, and the launch of cruise missiles into Syria from the Caspian Sea through Iraqi airspace without warning the U.S. beforehand.
Russia accelerated its effÂorts to court U.S. allies including Jordan and Israel ... bolstered its military presence near Afghanistan ... announcing the deployment of attack helicopters to neighboring Tajikistan. In a snap ministerial meeting on October 8, NATO agreed to double the size of its Response Force and announced its preparedness to deploy ground forces to defend Turkey ... Russia's escalated support to Syrian regime operations against rebels and Jabhat al Nusra in Syria show that Russia's main objective in the Middle East is not the anti-ISIS âfight, but rather the formation of a Russian-Iranian alignment that will serve its broader aims. In the mind of Russians, NATO was at war with Russia since 1998 (the rape of Serbia)
#2
Because 1998 convinced Russians that it doesn't mater what regime Russia has---it's still Drang nach Osten. Clinton is, actually, the one who made Putin the Sole Authocrat of all Russias (except, I suspect, Russia is ruled by a KGB heads commitee---with Vlad as the CEO)
#3
Cuban and Iranian troop with Russian air power in Syria attacking our pathetic surrogate forces. Yes Champ, you f*cking idiot, the 1980's have their foreign policy back. What a dangerous clown sits in the Oval Office.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] This past weekend's Ankara suicide kabooms, which killed at least 128 people attending a peace rally, is the worst terrorist attack in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... 's history. There are suspects aplenty. The rally was organized by the Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) to demand a halt to the escalating conflict between the increasingly authoritarian Turkish government and the outlawed Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK).
This renewal of a war that had cost tens of thousands of lives was itself due to the last major terrorist outrage - in Suruc, on the Syrian-Turkish border - where earlier this year a jacket wallah probably inspired by the Islamic State
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Posted by: Fred ||
10/14/2015 00:00 ||
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Usually, we could chalk this type of hyperbolic article to a media attempting to create something big out of policy debates within an administration. Alas, the issue seems a bit more serious than that, and, considering how much fecklessness we've seen out of Obama's policies these past 6+ years, it's entirely believable
Rift in Obama administration over Putin
The president's reluctance to respond assertively is signaling U.S. weakness and indecision, some officials say.
Vladimir Putin's intervention in Syria is creating new rifts inside an exhausted and in some cases demoralized Obama national security team, where officials pushing for bolder action see the president as stubbornly unwilling to assume new risk as he nears his final year in office.
Current and former Obama officials say the president's reluctance to respond more assertively against Putin is signaling U.S. weakness and indecision. "We're just so reactive," said one senior administration official. "There's just this tendency to wait" and see what steps other actors take.
This is simply an extension of "leading from behind", Obama's long standing avoidance for getting involved in international affairs that could be difficult and do not feed his narcissism. Obama likes to bluster verbally, but, when it comes to actual action, he seems so often to make the wrong decision. Then doubles down on it.
And, while we might say "he's gone in a little over a year", the fecklessness will further damage America's standing.
But expectations are low that those efforts will lead anywhere. Sources familiar with administration deliberations said that Obama's West Wing inner circle serves as a brick wall against dissenting views. The president's most senior advisers -- including National Security Adviser Susan Rice and White House chief of staff Denis McDonough -- reflect the president's wariness of escalated U.S. action related to Syria or Russia and, officials fear, fail to push Obama to question his own deeply rooted assumptions. "Susan and Denis channel him," says a former administration official who has witnessed the dynamic.
That dynamic is not new. But Putin's escalation has combined two of Obama's biggest foreign policy headaches -- a newly aggressive Russia and Syria's civil war -- into one throbbing migraine.
Even John Kerry wants more action, calling for a no fly zone, among others. He was resoundingly smacked down. Of course, much of this is a migraine created by Obama's, yes, let's use the word again, fecklessness.
Iran and Russia are competing to see which nation can humiliate President Obama more. Russia got off to a flying start with its intervention in Ukraine and its "assistance" to Obama in the non-enforcement of the president's red line against the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime in Syria.
It's well worth the read, but forgets one thing: it's Obama who puts himself in these situations, both passively and through words and actions. As Politico notes in their final paragraph "As one of the former officials put it: "This is driven by one man, and one man only, and it is Barack Obama."" He's his own wrecking crew.
BTW, where's Biden? Whenever there is some sort of big international policy debate, Biden seems to be missing from it. He was chosen by Obama to be the running mate in 2008 specifically for his foreign policy bonafides, yet, he appears to be the invisible man. Crossed at Pirate's Cove.
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
10/14/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
Vladimir Putin's intervention in Syria is creating new rifts inside an exhausted and in some cases demoralized Obama national security team.
I recommend resignation, or seppuku. Remember, your honor is at stake.
#4
officials pushing for bolder action see the president as stubbornly unwilling to assume new risk as he nears his final year in office
Mr. Obama has been post-presidential mode since 2008. The objective all along was to establish a C.V. and the groundwork for a progressive political movement. That's been done.
#5
On paper Obama's handlers saw him as the perfect candidate to execute "Smart Power". He just needeed to elevate his resume to Global-Community organizer. In the end he turned out to be the embodyment of the foudational flaw in their philosophy.
BTW, during the Dem. debate, HRC boasted the Libya engagement as Smart Power success.
#6
Hot Air has an article that says Obama's new friends, the Castros, have sent Cuban troops to Syria. A complete F-YOU
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/14/2015 18:50 Comments ||
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#7
Dats ridiculous, POTUS Obama is an Anti-US US OWG Globalist following a pre-determined US-World Agenda - his "Weakness" + "Indecision", etc. are INTENTIONAL.
IN THE BAMMER'S DEFENSE, HE'S NOT THE ONLY ONE IN WASHINGTON.
#8
See also BHARAT RAKSHAK > [Russia Today] LAVROV: ITS NOT CLEAR WHAT EXACTLY US IS [was?] DOING IN SYRIA, + WHY ITS RESULTS WERE SO INSIGNIFICANT.
Ouch.
* SAME > PUTIN: OPERATIONS OF US-LED COALITION YIELDS NO [Effective = Substantive] RESULTS, agz the Hard Boyz or Assad Regime.
* LUCIANNE > [BreitBart Big Govt].PUTIN: OBAMA ADMINISTARTION HAS "MUSH" FOR BRAINS, by its refusal to coooperate or coordinate wid Russia in Syria.
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > [Sputnik News] US NOT COORDINATING OM FREE SYRIAN ARMY [FAS] WID RUSSIA.
VERSUS
* ITAR-TASS > MODERN WORLD LOSING CONTROL OVER GLOBAL SECURITY, FORMER USSR PRESIDENT [Mikhail Gorbachev] SAYS.
Shouldn't surprise anyone - as I've said times before, OWG-NWO + US-WORLD/GLOBAL SOCIALIST ORDER IS THE FOCII OR PRIORITY FOR ANTI-US US OWG GLOBALIST POTUS OBAMA + GLOBIES, NOT NATIONAL SECURITY - BY EXTENSION, DITTO AS PER GLOBAL/WORLD SECURITY.
The more Anarchies-N-Chaoses/Mayhem, e.g. Jihadis + Illegal Migrants, etal. trying to domestically enter the US-Europe, THE BETTER FOR OWG-NWO + SOCIALISM.
* WORLD NEWS > [Washington Times] CURT SCHILLING TO DONALD TRUMP: "ISIS" WON THE US DEMOCRATIC DEBATE.
As said or inferred before, by the time US Musims begin demanding for LEGAL SHARIA in Amerika, the Secularist Libs + aligned are likely to had already imposed the conditions for Sharia, i.e MARXIST AMERIKA ALREADY HAS IMPOSED MOST OR ALL OF WHAT MUSLIMS + ISLAMIC LAW REQUIRES ANYWAY, SO WHY CONTINUE TO DISALLOW LEGAL SHARIA???
[DAWN] THE PPP today behaves almost like a pauper who has spent all his fortune but who clings on to grand descriptions. It talks about past glory, of sacrifices, of its struggle against martial law.
It promises a new charter, even some kind of a revolution. Unfortunately, the party has very little to show for all this huffing and puffing; it has only progressed backwards and is sinking deeper with every move that it doesn't make.
We may interject that this state of the PPP is more specific to Punjab. The fact is, however, that once the journey towards oblivion has begun in Punjab, decline elsewhere -- in Sindh -- cannot be far off.
Indeed, given just how easily the PPP set-up in Sindh can be ridiculed, the slip in the home province has long begun for the party of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto ...9th PM of Pakistain from 1973 to 1977, and 4th President of Pakistain from 1971 to 1973. He was the founder of the Pakistain Peoples Party (PPP). His eldest daughter, Benazir Bhutto, would also serve as hereditary PM. In a coup led by General Zia-ul-Haq, Bhutto was removed from office and was executed in 1979 for authorizing the murder of a political opponent... , or whichever PPP leader one would like the remnants to be associated with at the moment.
In Punjab, the sharp dip in the PPP's vote bank may appear deceptively of recent origin. In fact, the rot had been setting in for long. It is easy to select certain incidents and trends from many and string them together to arrive at the same conclusion: the erosion of the popular choice that the PPP embodied.
Take the latest, the by-election in NA-122 that had the PPP candidate winning 803 votes.
As symbols go, the constituency comprises areas from where Benazir Bhutto ... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in... had won in 1988 -- her first election -- and also localities from where Sheikh Rashid, the 'father of socialism', had lost in the same polls.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[DAWN] THERE was nothing surprising about the Supreme Court upholding the death sentence of a self-professed murderer; much more significant is the part of the ruling that says criticising blasphemy law does not amount to blasphemy. This brave judgement may not bring an end to religious vigilantism and fanaticism that is deep-rooted in our society, yet it is certainly a victory for those who dare to question the rationale of a law so open to misuse. The landmark ruling has vindicated the late Punjab 1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots.... governor Salmaan Taseer and other courageous people who bit the dust for merely calling for reform of the blasphemy law.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
