Scroll down to read this post.

 

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News


Nine mass shootings that did not happen because someone was there to stop it, with a gun.

Nine mass shootings that didn’t happen because someone was there to stop it, with a gun.

The one consistent fact about all the recent mass shootings that did happen is that they occurred in government-imposed gun free zones.

Readers!

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.

 

In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.

 

Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.

 

You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:

 

4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.

11 comments

  • Stu Harris

    Brilliant. Here are the tallies of dead and wounded — BY GUNS — not counting the perps:

    1 – 3,7
    2 – 1,3
    3 – 3,3
    4 – 2,?
    5 – 5,4
    6 – 0,?
    7 – 0,1
    8 – 2,1
    9 – 0,2

    TOTALS 16,21

    That’s 37 people who would not have been dead or injured if privately-owned guns were effectively controlled.

  • Edward

    Stu,

    In those nine cases alone, guns saved many lives, because the shooting stopped once an armed person arrived on the scene. Have you noticed that in most mass shootings, the shooting stops when someone with a gun arrives on the scene?

    Just what laws that would effectively control guns are not yet on the books? All of the current laws as well as resent proposed laws only prevent the law abiding from being able to save lives when a criminal shows up to shoot a bunch of people.

    What makes you think that lawbreakers will suddenly start obeying gun control laws if we add one (or some) more? We have added multitudes of gun control laws, the result of which was to disarm the responsible gun owners and leave the criminals and murderers free to go on shooting sprees, especially in areas where guns are not allowed (gun-free zones). Criminals and murderers tend to not shoot-up places where they know that there are a lot of guns, such as police stations.

    Perhaps the criminals and murderers tend to choose these gun-free zones specifically because they feel safe to shoot large numbers of people before the police arrive to stop them. It’s nice to know that when seconds count, the police are minutes away. It’s not so nice to know that when seconds count, your gun is in your car, and you have to escape through the gunfire before you can retrieve the one thing that stops these shooting sprees.

    I ponder what those numbers would have been had people with guns not arrived on these scenes to stop the killing sprees.

    I suppose that we could use some averages from some of the recent sprees. 26 at Sandy hill, 12 last Monday, 13 at Fort Hood, 12 at Aurora Colorado. That’s an average of 16 per incident. Taken over nine incidents, there could have been around 140 killed, so it looks to me like guns saved around 124 lives just in those nine cases alone. 124 lives that were saved because privately-owned — and effectively controlled — guns were available to stop the criminals/murderers.

    Should I go into the numbers of people who would not have been injured? Aurora alone left 70 injured.

    How many would have never been shot had there not been gun-free zones for shooters to feel safe in?

  • R. Cotour

    Firearms are a fact of life in America, the founders understood that it HAS TO be that way if they were to be successful in their scheme.

    What was their scheme? They gave the PEOPLE in no uncertain terms the ultimate power to take back their government when the inevitable happened. What is the inevitable? They understood that inevitably there would be corruption and abuse of power by the human beings that inhabited the government and the peoples freedoms would be taken away from them. In addition they understood that the people have to have the right to protect themselves from those who would do them and their family’s harm. (This was later strengthened in the Fourteenth Amendment.)

    The Second Amendment is nothing more or less than that. This conversation about if this happened or if that happened is not relevant, it is a distraction. It is a fact that unfortunate events like the one that happened the other day end when someone else shows up with a fire arm to stop it. The closer the fire arm to the event the sooner it stops. And I understand that to civilized, insulated and sophisticated people this harsh reality is very upsetting and counter intuitive.

    The real world sometimes visits the civilized world, it lurks around every corner, better for responsible people to be prepared to confront it and send it on its way than to not be prepared because of some politically correct talking point designed to disassemble that brilliant scheem which ensures the peoples freedoms.

    Its not perfect, but nothing is perfect, believe it or not this is what makes America exceptional.

  • Dean

    Facts mean nothing to those who want people disarmed so they are more easily oppressed

    There are hundreds of countries in the world who have “effective gun control” yet they have many murders and shootings

  • joe

    look up the Bath school murders in Bath township mi, over 40 murdered and 58 injured, one man, no guns, murdered his wife with a blunt object and set his farm ablaze, then off to school where he blew the school up, followed by his suicide where he blew himself up! if someone wants to do damage, a gun is not going to stop him unless its pointed at him!

  • Stu Harris

    “In those nine cases alone, guns saved many lives…”

    I understand, of course. It’s an extremely simple equation. My point is that if crazy people didn’t have access to guns (as in most of Europe) the body count would be even lower.

  • R. Cotour

    The fact is that Americans are mandated to have firearms as per their founding documents and there is a specific reason that it is that way. Guns exist, different kinds of people are going to have access to them, both legally and illegally. Are you willing to trade your sense of security from your fellow citizens for the real potential of your government coming to own you?

    Secondly, America is not Europe, we are different, understand the differences between the two and understand that the differences are by design, a very specific and purposeful design. Is Europe more civilized than America? That’s a very interesting question.

    There are tradeoffs, and they are not perfect, but let us not be naïve.

  • Crazy people in Europe don’t have access to guns, eh? Ask the 77 who are dead in Norway after Anders Behring Breivik’s mass murder. He might have been ruled sane, but neither you or I believe that.

  • R. Cotour

    GROSSPRIEL, Austria — In Austria, hunting game such as deer and wild boar is a hallowed way of life, one that follows age-old codes of honor and requires a license bestowed only after passing rigorous exams. In that exalted world, Alois Huber was a brazen outlaw even before he went on a murderous rampage that left four people dead….

    So much for the European ideal.

  • Dean

    Idiotic assertion

    Restrict access for all to try to accommodate lunatics…. Good liberal thinking.

    How about shooting the lunatics dead the moment they start harming people? That would reduce the “body count” too, like has been proven here in America, real world, not liberal theory.

  • Dean,

    I probably agree with you on most points, but here at Behind the Black I demand civility in debate. Please try to be a bit more polite in future posts.

Readers: the rules for commenting!

 

No registration is required. I welcome all opinions, even those that strongly criticize my commentary.

 

However, name-calling and obscenities will not be tolerated. First time offenders who are new to the site will be warned. Second time offenders or first time offenders who have been here awhile will be suspended for a week. After that, I will ban you. Period.

 

Note also that first time commenters as well as any comment with more than one link will be placed in moderation for my approval. Be patient, I will get to it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *