Monday, April 16, 2007

The Inevitable Insanity



[Tags: Guns, Virginia Tech, shooting, Columbine, gun ban,
massacre]



Today, at Virginia Tech, 32 people were killed by a lone gunman who walked onto the campus and proceeded to shoot students in classrooms and dorms. While the motivations are not yet provided, details are sketchy in the media, the shooter has yet to be identified by name and the campus is reeling in shock - we are left wondering what the hell this was all about, the inevitable knee jerk reaction is ready to jump out.

MORE GUN CONTROL

What's obvious to the knee jerk reactionaries is that at fault here are in-animate objects... tools if you will, hell bent on the destruction of the human race. These molded pieces of steel and wood are obviously possessed as they are blamed for this tragedy not the people weilding these weapons who are sick or possibly suicidal. As Columbine provided the fodder for the Brady Campaign and IANSA to further the anti-gun agenda, so this latest round will again froth up those like Senator Diane Feinstein or Henry Waxman to already be planning a Congressional review and issue legislation to bring back the Assault Weapons Ban. I predict somethings will soon occur:

- Bloomberg & his insane anti-gun Governor posse will use this for their political benefit
- Hillary will use it on the campaign trail as will most of the Democrats running for the Presidency in 2008. Most will make promises to curb guns
- IANSA will use this as a focal point with the U.N., Soros and the Brady Campaign
- Either a TV movie, Lifetime movie or a Michael Moore Columbine Clone movie will be made of this event
- Politics will rule this issue, not calm minds and logic


The effect? All of this only hurts citizens MORE and protects us LESS. Would a few students who had access to firearms been there - they could have prevented some of the 32 from being killed. What the Virginia Tech shooting shows us, is that defenseless people in a large concentration like a University, makes easy targets. Who was supposed to protect these people? The police? The University? The University security? Who?

The police where already THERE and they couldn't prevent the rest from being killed. What needs to happen is NOT a banning of guns, but legislation allowing MORE guns - especially guns on a campus such that students can defend themselves. We already know what happens when they DON'T have guns to protect themselves - how about we try something else instead? The tragedy will inevitably cause the rabid gun haters to come out on the news, become the armchair generals saying "I told you so", when nothing could be further from the truth. We need to stop playing the victims, stop expecting everyone else to protect us from the bad things that go bump in the night. Stop thinking that the police will get there in time and know exactly where to go and what to do. We are responsible for protecting ourselves. I'm not saying anything different would have happened were some students to have access to a firearm while on that campus. But certainly, the possibility exists that the maniac shooter could have been brought down or incapacitated before 32 kids died.

- Banning guns takes guns out of the hands of legal owners - bad guys still get them illegally.
- No amount of cameras or metal detectors or security forces will prevent this from occurring again.
- No University or College can exempt the cost of having all these security precautions as it would make the cost of going to that college too high to continue to exist.
- Only idiots blame inanimate objects for actions of people

The Second Amendment to the Constitution
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
Wake the hell up people and use your Constitutional right to self defense! These are YOUR freedoms, use them!

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Are we really wimps?



[Tags: Nazi, Policy, Police, wimp, constitution,
nanny]



I have been on hiatus for a while from blogging, but something that I read recently on another blog When did America become a nation of frightened wimps started me thinking. Steve Olsen makes a damn good argument: Since when did we start accepting this stuff? Did we accept it or are we simply too busy to bother bitching about it? Do we want to bitch but to politically correct to want to rock the boat or are we IN the boat but sinking because we cannot or do not know how to assemble and support each other?

Why it's not the governments fault:


I'm not big on pushing blame or responsibility for my life others - I have that oh so Western mentality that says "You are the master of your own destiny" though I sometimes think the Buddhist view of "You have your own destiny but it has not yet been revealed" is kinda sexy in a way. Yes we're a representative government not a direct Democracy - we the citizens still hire and fire our politicians locally and at the State level... they represent us at the Federal level and if they do a lousy job it's OUR job (yours and mine) to boot them and get someone better. Government my design is NOT supposed to involve themselves in your life directly which is why I tend to like less government. Yet as Steve identifies we really are in a nanny state of being... I think it's fear that got us some of the way, it's socialism that got us the rest of the way. Freedom of Choice and Free Will both are Western values that are highly esteemed. If I want to kill myself on Chocolate shakes and 2lbs. of McDonalds fries eaten every day for 20 years that's my prerogative. If I LIKE lard and want to eat it, no one should tell me I cannot. Yet, the "public good" is the most common reason used to relieve us stupid cattle of citizenry of the "bad" things in life. so what's worse? Democrats creating a socialistic country where every decision is made for the "common good" (read: The BORG), or is it reactionary militarists like the Republicans - who claim strip searching old ladies at air ports and warrantless SWAT team entries in teachers homes is a laughing matter...

Police:
"Oops! Haha! Sorry - didn't know you guys WEREN'T making bathtub X in and selling it to minors! Haha! Wrong address don't you know - Bill there misread that GPS map and thought it was Maple Drive instead of Maple Ave. haha! Would you like to buy some PBA tickets and support our Police Athletic League ball this year?"
Teacher: "Go *bleep* yourself."

Is there a reason ... a REAL reason to have warrantless searches or is it Nazi type stuff? Well look at yourself in the mirror folks - YOU let it happen. That's right - it's YOUR fault - all of you. You can sit there and say "BS pal - I didn't vote for ________". So what. You're responsibility doesn't END with voting, it STARTS with voting. The last thing we need is more partisan misinformation - I don't care what political party or non-political party you aspire to. Republicans have good points and bad as do Democrats. Extremists on either side are the problem not the solution. Pelosi, Waxman, Murtha and the rest of the "leadership" of Congress are no better than Bush, Gonzales, Cheney and the rest. Everyone in between these idiots gets screwed unless we do something about it AFTER the voting is done. The circle jerk of partisan backslapping found on the Internet isn't the solution it's again, part of the problem. We need someone who will do the right thing no matter WHO or WHAT position it supports.


So are we wimps? Cowards? Ambivalent is more like it. I agree that these things in Steve's blog post have to be corrected - they're crap. It reminds me of the Amish shootings last year - I was so pissed and outraged but the Amish who lost their children weren't. They forgave the killer and his family, tore down the school and built a new one and moved on. We need to do the same - we need someone with character to tear down the monstrosity that is currently residing on either side of the political spectrum's... both left and right... and tear it down to what our founders saw was the strength in our system, in our country and in our people. We don't have to ditch the constitution - we need to ditch the people who are failing to follow and lead in the spirit of that constitution. Tear it down, burn it... WE moderates are the majority, not the loud mouths, the cynics and the whiners. It's time we grow a set of balls and start acting like it.