Arm yourself
As usual, yesterday’s mass shooting in California caused President Obama and the entire left to go into spasms demanding more gun control. A gunman shows up at a random site and begins shooting innocent unarmed people, and the first instinct of the left is to disarm more people so that vicious murderers will have more unarmed people to nonchalantly murder.
I say, it doesn’t matter whether yesterday’s killers were Islamic madmen, right-wing madmen, left-wing madmen, or plain-old madmen. What matters is that they had an easy time killing lots of people, because those people decided to remain unarmed and helpless in the face of violence.
I say, arm yourself. Get prepared so that if you find yourself in such terrible circumstances you can fight back and possibly survive, and in the process maybe save a lot of other lives as well. The likelihood that there will more such killers, most of whom will likely be Islamic terrorists because that is whom we are presently at war with, is quite high. To sit helpless and not prepared for battle is the height of foolishness.
You are personally responsible. You cannot depend on the police or government to defend you. You need to be prepared to defend yourself.
Arm yourself. The next time a killer shows up there should be ten free Americans capable of stopping him or her in their tracks, before anyone innocent dies.
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I fully support your perspective. But a quibble at the end with the line “The next time a killer shows up there should be ten free Americans capable of stopping him or her in their tracks, before anyone innocent dies.” I agree. But the counter arguement is from insanity, that since you cannot guarentee no one gets hurt, better to do nothing.
Rather I would say “The next time a killer shows up there should be ten free Americans capable of stopping him or her in their tracks, minimizing the damage he can cause”
Only because I can hear the idiots responding to your post with “But they won’t stop every killing”.
I fully agree that every American should have a firearm. But not all will want one and some should not have one.
I truly think that every American should be trained in how to safely handle a firearm whether they want to own one or not.
So while your out looking for that new firearm this holiday season please also look into getting some professional training with it and as always practice practice practice.
Owning a firearm is not a video game. It gives you the power of life and death. With one thought and one finger you could kill someone.
You would not believe how many police officers and armed security people couldn’t hit the side of a barn with help, from inside, and yet they pass all required training and tests. Work at being better than your average cop.
Did the president comment on the implications of having a sleeper within the U.S. and what might support a persons decision do things to undermine the country that he grew up in based in a religious or political belief system?
The question obviously answers itself, specifically when talking about the president.
I hope more Americans arm themselves for protection.
It’s becoming painfully obvious that the President and his government has little interest in protecting individual citizen’s lives. They do seem to be interested in the protection of the “feelings” of some sub-segments of the population, however.
Superb words Bob….If people won’t lift a finger to save themselves, why should someone else do it?
NO ONE has mentioned a word about the fact that during the latest French slaughter , not one of the sheep tried to stand up and fight, they would rather die on their knees, pathetic, pitiful, and it makes me sick to my guts that we seem to be following that same path. Hitler said in ’39 or so “We have achieved COMPLETE gun control” and we all know how well that story worked out….
Dear Orion: please check your Hitler near-quote, it’s not at all accurate per any research I’ve seen, eg http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1791/did-hitler-ban-gun-ownership .
Whether Hitler spoke those particular words or not may be an item of contention but the effective result of what actually happened as a result of his agenda is to me the more important thing. Whether he said those words or not I think it is a sure bet that he was thinking them.
From Wikipedia: “Under both the 1928 and 1938 acts, gun manufacturers and dealers were required to maintain records with information about who purchased guns and the guns’ serial numbers. These records were to be delivered to a police authority for inspection at the end of each year.”
Disarming Jews in Nazi Germany[edit]
Nazi law to disarm Jews
On November 11, 1938 (the day after Kristallnacht) the Regulations Against Jews’ Possession of Weapons were promulgated by Minister of the Interior, Wilhelm Frick, effectively depriving all Jews living under the Third Reich of the right to possess any form of weapons including truncheons, knives, or firearms and ammunition.[7]
Before that, some police forces used the pre-existing “trustworthiness” clause to disarm Jews on the basis that “the Jewish population ‘cannot be regarded as trustworthy'”.[5]
Hitler and the NAZI party were very effective at encouraging people to not stand up against the government! The liberals of this age are trying the same thing. Bob’s comments ring true! When the government controls who gets a gun and how children are educated, we have fascism or Stalinism or what ever you want to call dictatorship.
Just wait and see the gun control the Trudeau government implements in Canada.
If the dems retain power in the good old USA, it will no longer be such.
@Orion314
I don’t know if this is true, but it was reported that two people did have guns and returned fire in Paris. They were mobsters from Columbia.
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/11/foghorn/armed-drug-trarorist-attacks/
One problem is that Obama’s refugee program distributes the refugees all over the country and especially into smaller communities. Where NYC or DC used to be the prime locations a terror attack could be expected, now small cities without the resources of major metropolises have a higher chance to be targeted than they did before.
When the Ferguson riots were taking place, many people were talking about the militarization of police departments. People were upset that small towns were getting armored personnel carriers. Well, they need them. As we saw yesterday, they came in very useful.
Their focus is solely on gun control because, in their minds, we are the real threat – the real enemy. The near-term goal is to disarm us. The long-term goal – ?????????.
We went from colonies – to country – to super-power – to empire (yes) – and now – collapsing empire from within and out.
“It’s really hard to buy a gun in Japan. The country also has almost no gun homicides.”
http://www.vox.com/2015/12/3/9845436/japan-gun-homicides
Has anyone else noticed that as gun laws make it harder and harder to legally obtain firearms, there are more and more shooting sprees and more people are killed with guns (such as in Chicago)?
It is obvious that the anti-gun laws are not working as intended.
Indeed, since a murderer would break such a supreme law, why would anyone expect him to follow any lesser law, such as gun laws that would prevent him from committing murder?
An analogy for the gun laws would be like punishing the bully’s victim rather than the bully. It only emboldens the bullies, who then bully more often.
It is obvious that government policies are making us less safe, not more so. It is also obvious that the only shooting sprees that are stopped early are stopped by someone who has a gun on the scene at the time, such as the Geller cartoon contest.
Waiting for the police to stop the spree only allows the spree to continue — when seconds count, it is comforting to know that they are only minutes away. It also allows an opportunity for the shooter(s) to escape, as we saw yesterday and as we saw with the Aurora Colorado shooting — although an officer arriving at *that* scene did excellent police work, questioned something that seemed incorrect, and caught that shooter during his escape.
Japan’s way of doing thing is to ensure Muslims do not get in! They have very few immigrants and NON from a Muslim country…….
Besides, the Japanese solution can not work where there are already guns held by the criminals!
Bob is right to point out that the California killings happened in a strictly regulated state and in a gun free government zone.
Reference Japan
There are a number of places that have extremely strict gun control laws, yet gun and other types of homicides are thru the roof (Mexico, Brazil. Jamaica etc).
The willingness and acceptance to kill in a society is CULTURAL!!!!!!!!!!
(my apologies Bob for any racial inferences to come)
Here in America, the homicide rate for whites and Asians is apx. 1.5+/- per 100000 – pretty much equal to the rest of the “civilized developed world”.
IT’S CULTURAL!!!! And everyone know it!
Those societies that have successfully removed guns from the hands of civilians never had them in the hands of a significant portion of it citizens in the first place.
Even Australian which outlawed an required all firearms be registered found out that almost 500,000 were never accounted for.
New York found out the same.
Canada found out that even after a billion dollars invested in it their gun registry didn’t work and they dropped it.
Japan for one has been effectively disarmed since the shoguns began. Pretty much 600 years.
The same with most of Europe through history. The long bow was outlawed in England for hundred years or more until a king realized he need trained archers to fight France, then he required any man capable of to learn it.
Their are over 200 thousand registered full auto firearms in the US and the even the ATF doesn’t think it could confiscate all of them.
Us states with higher gun ownership rates have higher gun homicide rates. Owners of guns are more likely to die from gun shots than non owners. So how can you conclude that higher gun ownership would make people safer?
Hondo: You dig down to the fundamental, it is definitely about culture. American / Western culture has been infiltrated over time by what I call “garbage” cultures. And those garbage cultures have been encouraged to grow by the dependency policies adopted by our own government and in those garbage cultures life is less valued.
Much like Islam they are cultures based more heavily in the patriarchal / macho model instead of one of a more universal respect for the individual, both male and female. Which is not to say that America does not have its version of macho but the Western / American mentality is one more based in evolution and refinement based in Constitutional concepts.
This has gone on for at least 3 generations and will probably take at least 2 generations to “correct”, what ever that may mean.
Desmond – if that was only universally true – its not.
Some states do – some states don’t.
How to you explain the huge discrepancies with states like Vermont, Maine, Wyoming, Iowa etc, with states like Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama etc.
Its purely cultural. And given the social/political/ideological behind the right to bear arms – it will be a cold day in hell I give up that right for the cultural failings of others.
Desmond
Federal Statistics on this are easily available – you didn’t even bother – do you expect to be taken serious on a board that primarily caters to science?
How come as CCW has gone up gun related deaths have gone down along with all other crimes.
Desmond needs to watch this 7-minute video, which should help him properly adjust his arguments:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pELwCqz2JfE (“Number One with a Bullet”)
It does not answer my question, though, which is: “why punish the victim of gun violence and embolden the perpetrator?” The gun laws are the equivalent of punishing the bullied while allowing bullies to continue their bullying.
Unlike Japan, which — reportedly — has no guns in the hands of the bad guys, America cannot keep the guns out of the hands of bad guys. At the very least, smuggling is easily accomplished here, as evidenced by the availability of foreign-produced illicit drugs.
Even where guns do not exist at all or are hard to obtain for the crime, the bad guys find other means of mayhem — to the point where Britain is considering banning pointy knives. The bad guys, last Wednesday, had much more than guns, they had pipe bombs and RC toy cars to deliver them.
http://stephenewright.com/fromthebluff/2008/10/23/the-butcher%E2%80%99s-bill-%E2%80%93-non-gun-mass-murders/
“… the largest mass murders in every category were committed not with firearms, but with explosives. The main reason for this gruesome statistic is the same lesson learned by the armies of the world and the major terrorist groups; firearms are designed for personal defense …”
“… it is not guns that cause people to commit murder, but the hatred and murder in their hearts.”
So, what if — as hondo suggests — the people of one (or more) culture has more hatred and murder in its heart than others?
Although I seem to be arguing against you, Desmond, I don’t want you to stop commenting. Whatever you do, don’t shut up.
http://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/what-ever-you-do-dont-shut-up
However, I hope that you see that guns are not the problem, people (and politicians) are. Without guns, the murderous would find other means of mayhem, but the rest of us would be less protected.
The police do not stop crimes, at least they rarely do directly. Their job is to discourage crime by making sure it does not pay. They come to the scene of a crime, collect evidence for the prosecutor, and apprehend the suspect(s). It is rare that they are already on the scene and get to stop a crime before it starts, as they did in Texas at Pamela Geller’s cartoon contest.
About half a century ago, this policing method of discouraging bad behavior was shown to be a failure when it came to terrorism, because those people did not care whether they were caught or punished. Many modern terrorists don’t care whether they live through the terrorist event.
Most of the time, we are personally responsible for our own safety. It is comforting that the police are only minutes away, but when the bad guy is in front of us, seconds count, not minutes. That the government removes important means for us to remain safe is a shame on the government, not on us.