Remember when Democrats were swooning over our Bill of Rights in July 2016 when their newly minted paramour of public relations pounded a pocket constitution on the podium? That Gold Star father, Khizr Khan, reminded millions how powerful and meaningful a document written 220 years ago could be. Hell, remember when they were hugged up with the Constitution like punch-drunk teenagers just a week ago over the Nunes Memo?
Well, looks like the honeymoon with ye’ old parchment has come to an end. Several outspoken Democrats and loudmouth celebrities alike have come out in their full plumage of true colors; and the Constitution is once again an offensive throwback. Hell, even a few soon to be unemployed swing-district Republicans have come out in a show of solidarity as well. For when there are parts of a time-tested, principled thesis on self governance that we don’t agree with while fueled with rapid fire grotesque imagery of an emotional tragedy, why not take aggressive and unnecessary action? I mean, cmon’ right… that thing was written a looooooooong time ago. I’m not sure how long, but I think Hall and Oats were still touring.
So why take the good with the bad? Gee, I dunno, principle maybe? Perhaps the left feels they can rewrite our inalienable rights because they have been so successful at alienating so many voters. As Oscar Wilde said, “Failure is a far better teacher than success”… Or was that Flavor Flave? Anywho, the onus is now on the spineless Republicans in Congress to somehow dig deep and remember that grown-ass adults don’t get punished for random acts of the insane and the Homer Simpson-esque incompetence of the FBI (Federal Bureau of Incompetence ? TM that I’m putting it on a T-shirt).
It is at this time we have to truly ask ourselves what it means to be free. I don’t want to regurgitate that “price of a free society” line while parents plan funerals to bury their 15 year old children. I have kids. I would take a bullet for them. What I won’t take is a wayward philosophy of mediocrity where we need to scrap our most sacred birthright for a passing fancy of false security. The greatest mass killing of all time occurred in Norway, where guns are outright banned. Australia has still had numerous occurrence of gun violence since they banned weapons from the general public. Our history and circumstance are light years apart from these countries. Comparing us is not apples and oranges; its apples and sea bass.
We need school security. Notice how these Neanderthals aren’t targeting police stations or gun shows? It sickens me that folks like the Los Angeles Times still claim a good guy with a gun can’t stop a crazed killer with no formal training. Oh, the tortured logic. Or maybe the logic is being waterboarded, because their argument doesn’t hold water. Liberals demand we do something, even though banning one kind of weapon will do very little in terms of firearm homicides, but when we recommend immediate solutions like armed security, oh… that’s pie in the sky.
If I had to capitulate to one thing and one thing only: the waiting period. The words of the 2nd Amendment reads “Shall not be infringed,” not “Shall not be inconvenienced.” I don’t even care too much for rifles; I keep a 9mm and it barely sees the light of day. It’s not about guns, it’s about being treated like adults. Like equals, you know; equality. The left should remember that their most espoused virtue should apply to the relationship between the government and the people they supposedly serve.
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Socialists have been using children for propaganda – for as long as there have been socialists
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This is a response I wrote in response to a gun control post on a blog that used to be the gold standard for conservative blogging but has turned into a sandbox for sour grapes NeverTrumpers to have a temper tamptrum and beat the their fists and feet….it used to be a good blog (it rhymes with BD you know what I mean) and I never thought in a million years I’d find a home here since I moved to Florida….here you go…
Regarding your 7 points above, points 1-3 already exist. Expanding
mental health services would be money well spent. If we did more of
that then maybe Sen. Deeds’ son wouldn’t have taken his own life and
horribly disfiguring his father beforehand. We also need to work to end
the stigma on mental health. A person with mental health issues is not
a monster or Hannibal Lecter. They are people who need treatment. We
don’t stigmatize folks with hypertension. We see it as a condition to
be treated with meds and lifestyle changes. Regarding adjudication,
someone is adjudicated mentally incompetent (i.e. mentally ill) they are
barred from purchasing, owning, and, operating a firearm. This has
been the law for a long, long time. The only way they can have their 2A
rights restored is to be adjudicated mentally competent. We already
have an eligibility database. Outlawing weapons that meet your criteria
of “firing too much, too fast” is too vague and simply not feasible.
You would need to do that via a massive gun buy back program. A forced
confiscation effort would plunge this country into its second Civil War.
As for evolving technology, the 2A is working exactly as the founders
intended. The founders were extremely intelligent and it is reasonable
to expect they anticipated technological innovation from many fronts.
Indeed, the ballistic technological innovation of rifling happened in
the middle of the Revolution and greatly increased the accuracy and
lethality of Continental firearms over the British smooth bore firearms.
As for education, absolutely. Education never hurt anyone. However,
education is the solution as long as ignorance is the problem. We have
all kinds of sex education programs but we still have teens with
unwanted/unplanned pregnancy and STDs. It’s not that teens don’t know
how the baby is made (insert tab A into slide B) it’s just that they
don’t care or they don’t think it will happen to them. Gun safety
education mainly prevents firearm accidents. NO amount of education
would have stopped the young man in Florida from committing the atrocity
he did. Resource officers are definitely a good idea. But we need
to follow the Israeli model. Once the kids are in school, all the doors
are locked to keep the bad guys out. And there are always several
teachers with concealed firearms to take down an armed intruder in the
unlikely event he can circumvent security countermeasures.
Next, it
is time for a full scale review of the FBI and the federal bureaucracy
in general. There were numerous tips delivered to the FBI regarding
Nikolos Cruz but the FBI failed to over and over to investigate. The
centralized tip line call center located in West Virginia failed to pass
some of the tips to the field office in Miami. We need to reform the
bureaucracy to make it easier to fire incompetent and underperforming
federal employees. It should come as no surprise when reports are
released showing thousands of federal employees spending 8 hours/day
surfing porn and entertainment websites like YouTube. There’s nothing
like the specter of dismissal looming over one’s head as incentive to
stay focused and do your best. I’ve been a military contractor for 20
years now and I’ve seen countless federal employees come to work and do
nothing but surf entertainment sites and e-commerce sites. Yes, there
are federal employees who do their jobs well and want to make a
difference but they are far and few between.
Finally we need to
understand the difference between mental health issues and evil. Evil
will always find a way to commit evil deeds. The Tsarnaov brothers
didn’t use any firearms at the Boston Marathon. They used pressure
cookers and explosive materials easily purchased. How would we prevent
that? Ban pressure cookers? Require a pressure cooker license? There
comes a time when we have to accept there is evil in the world. And no
amount of sacrificing our liberty for security will change that. In
fact, it will only embolden evil persons to commit more evil acts.
What was that again, Mr. Lloyd? No mass shootings outside police stations?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_shooting_of_Dallas_police_officers
http://abc30.com/7-shot-1-fatally-in-mass-shooting-near-chicago-police-department-headquarters-/2289633/
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/12/shooting-new-jersey-police-station-gloucester/320085/
Another falsehood in a piece full of falsehoods and misspellings. You can do better, Mr. Lloyd.
An “afterthought, an amendment, and the second one at that”? That is a naive and uninformed statement. You should be more careful about chastising others when your own understanding is so limited.
The Bill of Rights was adopted as a group, not in any rank order. And most importantly, it was what saved the entire new constitutional government from totally collapsing. If you had any understanding of history you would know that the Bill of Rights was a burning issue for years, even before the Revolutionary War was finished. By the time of the first Constitutional Convention after the war, many states were threatening to abandon the entire government unless this Bill of Rights was included in the constitution. Thanks to Madison and a few others, they quickly reached agreement to include the Bill of Rights in lieu of forming an entirely new government. This saved the United States government. This is far from an “afterthought” as you claim. The second amendment was as important as any other component of our constitution, and you can bet that the founders, having just finished ridding themselves of tyrannical government, knew exactly how important that 2nd amendment is.
Thank you Frank. Mr. Olsen doesn’t seem to care about his own imperfections.
Indeed, I do, and I write here such that you will help me find and correct them. That is the point of debate and discourse. I respect it and stand ready for correction.
You will note that the imperfections are never acknowledged. And if challenged is quick to say ad hominem attack. I no longer respond to him and I suggest you avoid doing so.
Literary license, and my point is clear: We did not flee the boot of the Crown for the right to arm ourselves, though I agree it is an important right and one I cherish along with many other rights.
We fled the boot of the Crown for religious freedom. That is our birthright. It is the most essential element of American culture, the cause of our ancestors giving their lives for this new land where they could worship as they saw fit.
If you really cherish the right, then don’t diminish it as less important than other rights. Some colonialists came here for religious freedom, and many others came here for economic reasons, and most were not “fleeing the crown” at all. Later they became incensed by having to host the king’s troops when they got here, being taxed unfairly, and on and on. By the time of the revolution, the colonials were extremely clear and vehement about the rights they wanted protected constitutionally. They were willing to abandon the US govt too, if those rights were not protected, and it’s a wonderful thing that they did, because otherwise a mob of demagogues and nitwits could bully our Congress into throwing away our rights. Don’t be a part of the mob.
It’s not an if: I do cherish the 2nd Amendment and regularly exercise those rights, but I do not conflate them with the principles underlying the formation of our country, the “why” of being an American. The 2nd Amendment is more the “how” in the matter.
Every incursion on our 2nd Amendment freedoms is a loss of liberty and is regrettable, much as are the incursions on the 1st Amendment, 4th Amendment, and so on. Ultimately, there is a fine balance needed to meet the needs of our country. For example, we permit warrantless searches under some circumstances, and in balance its a relatively sound decision. Same with 1st Amendment, and the 2nd Amendment, too.
Andrew, as I deeply care about all of my readers and fellow Virginians whether they agree with me or not, I have included a link below that may be of some help to you.
https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline
Your ad hominem attack is disgusting. Discuss the issues.
Are guns banned in Norway, Dylan?
Some think that only the USA has mass murders. Mr Lloyd pointed out the situation in Norway, which, by the way, would best be described as the greatest mass killing by one man. The situation in Beslan was much worse.
The Beslan school siege (also referred to as the Beslan school hostage crisis or Beslan massacre started on 1 September 2004, lasted three days, involved the illegal imprisonment of over 1,100 people as hostages (including 777 children), and ended with the deaths of at least 334 people. The crisis began when a group of armed Islamic militants, mostly Ingush and Chechen, occupied School Number One (SNO) in the town of Beslan, North Ossetia (an autonomous republic in the North Caucasus region of the Russian Federation). The hostage-takers were the Riyadus-Salikhin Battalion, sent by the Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who demanded recognition of the independence of Chechnya, and Russian withdrawal from Chechnya. On the third day of the standoff, Russian security forces stormed the building with the use of tanks, incendiary rockets and other heavy weapons. As of December 2006, 334 people (excluding terrorists) were killed, including 186 children.
A well armed citizenry is absolutely essential in the USA if we are to have a chance at preventing such a thing. We have islamic terrorists in every state in the Union. Islamic terror cells took control of 4 aircraft and crashed them into various buildings on 9/11. The death toll was about 3000. There is no reason to assume that such cells are not functioning and planning large scale attacks on soft targets. Schools, aka “gun free zones” are soft targets today. They do not have to be soft in the future.
Guns are banned in Norway? Sure, some guns are banned in Norway, but not all guns are banned in Norway. There are well over a million registered private guns in Norway for about 5 million people. Same in the US: Some guns banned, others highly restricted, others not so much. Have you ever actually visited Norway? Even watching the Olympics reminds they are good with guns.
When it comes to the Constitution, we all pick and choose. Me? I’m very fond of the 1st Amendment, but pretending it stands against any infringement is folly and the road to ruin. Copyright? Libel? Slander? A long list of incursions, all necessary to effectuate the right itself, as with the 2nd Amendment and others.
The 2nd Amendment is meaningful to me. I own many types of firearms and exercise my rights regularly, but reasonable regulation is fine. Putting a nice fence or frame around it is helpful.
(P.S. You might catch up on the spelling of Flavor Flav and John Oates.)
“The greatest mass killing of all time occurred in Norway, where guns are outright banned.”
This mass killing started with a bombing in Oslo. The bombing killed and injured scores of people. The bomber then drove to a remote camp for kids and slaughtered every kid he could using a gun. Essentially, the bombing was a distraction that caused the security to leave the children’s camp unguarded and unarmed to defend themselves.
The second amendment is not just for national defense, it is for community and self-defense. We send our kids to public school assuming that teachers with not only teach but protect them. If we do not trust the teachers to protect, then why should we send our kids to school, to be in a facility unprotected 8 hours or more per day? The left is so insanely anti-gun that they can’t even admit this simple issue.
The first sentence is a complete falsehood. I visit Norway regularly.
This issue is not left versus right. It is urban versus rural and only coincides with political stripe. The relationship is not causal. Plenty of rural Democrats supportive of gun rights, just as many urban Republicans opposed to gun rights.
Mr. Olson, why don’t you simply stay in Norway regularly? Seems you would be much happier there 🙂
If ad hominem attack is your response to factual discourse then you are far more mediocre than I had assumed. I thought you might be up to the challenge of discussing facts. Apparently not.
If the way you deal with disagreement is to drive those with whom you disagree out of town then you are more juvenile than I thought.
Explain why you avoid addressing the disagreements themselves in favor of ad hominem attack,
Except —— Norway has an Islamic violent crime problem. Not as bad as Sweden, but give it time.
How many 18 year olds register to vote?
Expect that to percentage to grow and grow like fad.
And who will Va Republicans run against Senator Kaine?
Job performance stands out above talk.
Great talking points. I do ballot access petitioning and every day I run into voters who ask me about gun control and when I say I support upholding the Second Amendment, they say, “So you think teenagers should be allowed to buy assault rifles to shoot up schools with?!”
I think an appropriate answer would be:
“No!, But I do think you have a right to defend yourself. You send your kids to schools and assume they will be protected. Well, teachers who aren’t armed can’t protect them and token security measures give everyone a false sense of security. Gun free zones are a failure. They are really a free fire zone.”
And then what do you say if they reply, “But the school in Florida had an armed guard! It wasn’t a gun-free zone.” What do you tell them when your lie is revealed?
You mean the Deputy Fife impersonator hiding in the bushes? Yeah, he made a big difference. I think they reported it was taking too much time getting the round from his pocket to the cylinder of his trusty six shooter to respond to the man child with the weapon of war! I suppose it is easier for an unarmed teacher to lay down their life for their students than an armed & trained Barney Fife caricature. I wonder how things would have turned out if one of those courageous teachers had a firearm to protect their students? It works for Israel.
To my point: An armed guard does not a strong defense make, though if you are lucky a few might prove brave. The fact remains that there was on site an armed guard who proved useless. The school video security system: 26 minutes out of sync with real time.
You do not want Israel’s highly restrictive gun culture in the US. The more you look the more different they are and their approach is extremely restricted. Too restrictive for my taste and experience.
My point: Train and arm teachers that want to protect their students. One feckless resource officer is just window dressing and could never adequately defend a multi-story school. That “wall” thing works for them Israelis, too.
No objection to your point. Arm those desirous, suitable, properly trained. But don’t say the zone was gun free because it wasn’t. I repeat: You don’t want Israel’s troubles, and you don’t want their gun laws, which are draconian.
With Barney Fife leading the charge, it was effectively a gun free zone. Never said a word about Israel’s gun laws, btw. Just their common sense attitude towards the protection of their childrens. You should stop reading so much into these posts, I think it confuses you.