I gotta admit that I was a hippie during the 1960s. Maybe not to the degree that I wanted but still a hippie. I had to work a full-time job, had college classes and the studying that goes with it, so that didn’t allow much time for anything else. But at least I was a hippie at heart. It’s good to hear that the students in the most recent school shooting are becoming avid activists for gun control and the rest … Continue reading My Kind Of Generation…
Red America sure is a strange place to me. They wave the flag with such vigor and then go about trying to prevent those who might vote differently than them from having their say. In the 60s it was primarily African Americans who had their attention, now they have expanded way beyond that group. Red America makes no sense to me. Every gun tragedy that … Continue reading The Soul of America?
This is going to be one of those personal posts for me as it delves into my inner being but it needs to come out. I think it is natural that when a person starts to realize his mortality that he tries to summarize his life and the world around him. For some it is about legacy, some just tr I have been doing that a lot … Continue reading Disappointment …
When I came across this post in Instagram from my friends at BBC America I had a flashing thought that I may be more British than American. I’m pretty sure my distant ancestors came from the Great British Empire a few hundred years ago so maybe it is in my blood. I love looking at things from a philosophical angle and I devour almost everything … Continue reading I Might Be More British Than American…
I know guns are an emotional topic for many in this country. It is kind of like the immigration issue. Many of us have compassion for those who struggle to come to the “land of opportunity” but others see those coming, both legally and illegally, as someone to fear. They fear they are rapists and murderers or at least taking away their jobs. Some see threats, … Continue reading Guns and the Great USA…
Ammunition degrades because the gunpower inside of it does not last forever in the compressed state that it lives…. For most people, the decline in accuracy is mitigated somewhat by the fact that they never use their firearms for self-defense purposes. But it really can be a problem in the long-run. And that’s why ammo manufacturers are even more profitable than gun manufacturers. Because ammunition … Continue reading Guns need food. Starve them.
The title for this post should be used every time another senseless death occurs because of unstable people getting their hands on guns. If the current batch of politicians are so afraid of the NRA then it is time for them to go…. no matter their party affiliation. Continue reading Killed by the NRA…
“Which came first, the chicken or the egg??” has been the question of the day for as long as I remember. But I have a different version now. Which came first a ranting populace or radical right radio?? Lets look at that question some in this post. I know that Rush Limbaugh has been around a long time now. He has made millions of bucks … Continue reading Which Came First??
“The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.” LaPierre and gun-rights advocates point to research that supports this argument, chiefly a 1994 study by Gary Kleck, a Florida State University criminologist. Based on a telephone survey of about 6,000 people, Kleck concluded that guns are used defensively to stop a range of crimes, from … Continue reading Good Guys With Guns???
The epidemic of gun violence in America has become the new normal. We can’t just blame it on the brokenness of the world, pray for peace, and move on, worried that anything more will be seen as politicizing tragedy. What is tragic is that those who have the ability to DO something about this crisis refuse to offer more than simplistic sentiments on Twitter before … Continue reading When Is ENOUGH, ENOUGH
Pragmatism Needed Here Continue reading About Those Second Amendment Rights…
Mr. Obama ordered flags at the White House on Friday to half-staff to honor the victims of the shooting. “When Americans are killed in mine disasters, we work to make mines safer,” he said on Thursday night as early reports of the dead and injured in Oregon reached the White House. “When Americans are killed in floods and hurricanes, we make communities safer. When roads … Continue reading Stuff Happens….
I don’t know any parent in his right mind that would now allow their kids to trick or treat a house they didn’t intimately know the people behind the door. It wouldn’t totally surprise me to see this scenario being played out… Continue reading Halloween….
Pope Francis recently spoke out about “unbridled capitalism”. A good example of that is the unregulated sales of guns in this country. Even my small town of 2,000 now has a gun shop where anyone can buy just about any weapon they choose. Capitalism is the best economic system in the world but when it is unfettered from any moral requirements it is perhaps among the worst… Continue reading Even In Small Town America…
It is heartwarming to see that the tragic picture above has spurred so many of the European nations into further action. Many, especially Germany, have opened their borders to thousands fleeing war and famine in Syria and neighboring places. One image seems to have ignited a fire of response. Thank the Lord. As I have learned “Putting a face on a problem” is the first step in … Continue reading Putting a Face On It….
Despite a loud minority, most of the U.S. has moved on. Last year, seven states accounted for 80 percent of all executions. And it is even more evident when you look at counties. More than half of death penalty convictions originate in 2 percent of the counties in the U.S. More and more Christians are troubled that 85 percent of executions take place in the Bible Belt. A … Continue reading Despite the Loud Minority…
Great Britain has a population of 60 million citizens so they are only about one-fifth the size of the U.S. but I am willing to bet everything that the our cops fired their weapons more than 15 times last year. I’ll bet it is more than fifteen times in the last ten minutes. Our obsession with guns costs us dearly in human lives. I’m sure … Continue reading All The Bad Guys…
Ferguson has been dominating the news lately. Especially after the grand jury decisions. This post is not going to be about that except to say that needlessly taking another life is as tragic as all those lives lost previous to that young man. I thoroughly support a police officers right to defend himself and that is what the grand jury decided. The way to defend himself is … Continue reading Beam Me Up Scottie….
“As a result of [Supreme Court] rulings, the Second Amendment, which was adopted to protect the states from federal interference with their power to ensure that their militias were ‘well regulated,’ has given federal judges the ultimate power to determine the validity of state regulations of both civilian and militia-related uses of arms. That anomalous result can be avoided by adding five words to the … Continue reading It Seems Obvious To Me…..
The silencer buying frenzy is the second wave of gun-related purchases in the last two years. After the Newtown massacre, gun owners feared that a weapons ban would be enacted and rushed to buy assault rifles. Now that last year’s push for universal background checks has failed, gun owners have a lot of guns on their hands, and are outfitting them with gadgets including silencers, … Continue reading Gun Silencers Are Suddenly Selling Like Hot Cakes…
Thank heavens that he couldn’t find a gun….. Continue reading Thank Heavens…..
….I’m also not so sure that, as my friend said, it (gun violence) is the way the “world” is. The more I travel the world I am convinced it’s not the way the world is… it’s the way the USA is. I’ve seen a lot of the world, with travels taking me to about a dozen countries a year and this is what I’ve seen: … Continue reading Bringing America Back to Life….
ob⋅ses⋅sion /əbseʃən/ — noun an unhealthy and compulsive preoccupation with something or someone syn: fixation Storyline: The gun was small and light, the training wheels of firearms. The .22-caliber, single-shot Crickett rifle turned deadly on Tuesday, officials in Kentucky said, when a 5-year-old Cumberland County boy shot and killed his 2-year-old sister in what the coroner described to a local paper as “just one of … Continue reading Just Another Obsession???
In spite of a vote last Thursday in favor of debating new gun measures, some Democrats who are facing re-election next year in conservative states have already said they will not vote for the background check measure offered by Senators Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, and Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, forcing Democrats to look desperately across the aisle to fill … Continue reading Party Rifts Complicate Chances for Gun Bill Passage – NYTimes.com
Source: Rate of Gun Ownership Is Down, Survey Shows – NYTimes.com. The household gun ownership rate has fallen from an average of 50 percent in the 1970s to 49 percent in the 1980s, 43 percent in the 1990s and 35 percent in the 2000s, according to the survey data, analyzed by The New York Times. In 2012, the share of American households with guns was … Continue reading Rate of Gun Ownership Is Down…
Source: No guns at home, so Japanese shoot ’em up in Guam – Itineraries on NBCNews.com. Because guns are so hard to find, gun-related crime is extremely rare. They were used in only seven murders in Japan — a nation of about 130 million people — in 2011, the most recent year for official statistics. In the U.S., with 315 million people, there are more … Continue reading Only Seven Murders….
Source: To Lower Suicide Rates, New Focus Turns to Guns – NYTimes.com. The national map of suicide lights up in states with the highest gun ownership rates. Wyoming, Montana and Alaska, the states with the three highest suicide rates, are also the top gun-owning states, according to the Harvard center. The state-level data are too broad to tell whether the deaths were in homes with guns, … Continue reading Statistics Averse……
Source: NRA press conference: Put armed guards in schools (+video) – CSMonitor.com. Mr. LaPierre offered the NRA’s assistance in putting together safety programs in schools that include arming security personnel. Very the long-awaited response from the NRA relative to the Newton Conn. massacre is more guns. With the American flag on one side and the NRA flag on the other the NRA’s executive vice … Continue reading NRA Solution to Gun Violence — More Guns
Source: NYT: NRA gathers amid storm over gun laws – US news – The New York Times – msnbc.com. Simply put gang, when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns. You will NEVER take mine. I am NOT the enemy. I stand WITH the police and have NEVER discharged my weapons. BUT if someone comes to harm me, wife or my doggie, that is a … Continue reading And The Ranting Goes On….
Here is an anonymous quote I ran across a little while ago. If you give a man a fire, he will be warm for the night. If you set a man on fire, he will be warm the rest of his life Very off-the-wall but humorous in a macabre sort of way. And here is another one that is even more insane Guns Save Lives.. … Continue reading Way Off The Top…
RJ's Corner 