Category: Society & Politics

If guns are the problem…

Since our president has wasted no time in politicizing the deaths earlier this week in California, calling for more limits on our liberties and demanding that people become more defenseless in the face of these aggressors, I thought I would see if this righteous indignation over “gun violence” was indeed just a consistent caring for life.

So, here’s a statistic from the CDC: There were 33,636 deaths due to firearms in 2013.

This statistic includes deaths not the result of violent crime, and is not adjusted for the number of lives saved each year with firearms (which is higher than the 33k figure). Also note that the FBI says that 61% of all gun-related deaths in the U.S. are suicides.

Is this really the big killer today? How about another CDC statistic:

“Excessive alcohol use led to approximately 88,000 deaths and 2.5 million years of potential life lost (YPLL) each year in the United States from 2006 – 2010, shortening the lives of those who died by an average of 30 years. Further, excessive drinking was responsible for 1 in 10 deaths among working-age adults aged 20-64 years.”

So, the same organization lists alcohol as a cause for over twice as many annual deaths and even more in YPLL. Does anyone think the president will call for bans on alcohol?

It’s not about guns. It’s about control.

Constitution? Not in an Airport.

An amusing bit of news:

A man who wrote the fourth amendment on his skin was arrested at an airport.

A Charlottesville man who stripped down to his underwear at Richmond International Airport to protest security-screening procedures was charged with disorderly conduct Thursday, airport police said.

So, just to be clear. If you…

  • …are told to submit to groping and/or ogling by a TSA agent and don’t do so, you’re in trouble.
  • …make ogling more efficient by stripping down to your underwear in line without being asked, you’re in trouble.
  • …write the fourth amendment on your body, your first amendment rights will be violated and you’re in trouble.

Half the people behind this guy in line probably never saw the fourth amendment before this guy took his shirt off, so I say he’s just performing a public service.

Remember folks: Bureaucracy is the art of removing every last vestige of good judgment from every process involved. Don’t gum up the works by scrawling quotes from the nation’s fundamental legal document on your skin. You’re body belongs to the government, and they’ll have none of it, or didn’t you know that?

Happy new year!

NRA members should join GOA

NRA members should join Gun Owners of America.

Why?  Because the NRA is okay with negotiating away free speech.

I am a member of both organizations, but I will be thinking long and hard before renewing my NRA membership when it is due.

Hopefully, before then, the NRA will realize that it represents its members, not the organization itself. If the NRA is willing to make deals with an anti-First Amendment Congress in order to maintain itself as an institution, who is to say they won’t do the same for the Second Amendment?

Unlike the NRA, GOA is pro-Constitution, not merely pro-gun. So, if you are a member of the NRA, consider joining GOA as well, and perhaps letting your NRA membership lapse if they don’t clean up their act.

What’s up with California?

Here’s a good article on why California (where I called home for 19 years) is such a basket case:

California Crack-up

  • THE PERFECT STORM
  • CALIFORNIA BEGETS A NATIONAL LOSS OF INNOCENCE
  • ONE-PARTY RULE IN CALIFORNIA
  • THE DISHONESTY OF SOCIALIST ONE PARTY-RULE
  • MUCH OF OBAMA’S AGENDA IS ALREADY IN PLACE IN CALIFORNIA
  • THERE’S HOPE FOR A SECOND GREAT CALIFORNIA TAX REVOLT

Although I am not so sure about there being “hope” for a tax revolt.

Gun Free Zones: Great for Criminals, Not so Much for You.

John Lott has a good peice about so-called “gun free zones” where he mentions:

“For years I would tell news people about the fact that every single multiple victim public shooting in the US involving more than three people killed took place in one of these gun-free zones.”

Every time I see a “no guns allowed” sign, I think of other really cool ideas for posted slogans, like perhaps “no home alarms allowed” at the entrance to a housing tract or maybe “locked doors prohibited” in a public parking lot. Better yet, how about one of those nice “KICK ME” signs on your back.

It is only common sense that banning the carrying of guns in any given area means that only criminals will carry guns there — and assuming they can read, they can do so with the confidence that there probably won’t be anyone there capable of stopping them.

Here’s an easy mental excersize: put yourself in the shoes of a burgler, driving down the street, trying to decide which house to break in to.  One house has a car in the driveway with a bumper sticker that says “Gun Control Means Using Both Hands.”  The next house has a car in the driveway that says “There is no room for guns in a civil society.”  Which house do you break in to?

If people having guns with them is such a big problem, when was the last time you heard of a “crazed gunman” going on a rampage at a gun show?