So I had about 325 miles to drive home Friday night, plenty of time to do a little pondering. Here’s what I have come up with… we better get ready for the battle of our lives, for our country. Before you liberals get your panties all in a wad, follow along for a few minutes, and I’ll tell how I have come up with this.
With days to go before Obama got elected in 2008, he made one of the few honest public statements he has ever made when he said he was going to fundamentally change this country. The libs didn’t listen. He also said he wanted a civilian security force as well trained and funded as our military. Again the libs didn’t listen. He won the election and began his mission. He appointed a ton of czars and advisers, making the obvious effort to circumvent the balance of power by ruling through regulation instead of governing by legislation. The libs didn’t notice. Congress didn’t seem to notice either, even though the Executive Branch began gaining weight and tipping the scales.
He nationalized two of the three car companies, then focused on the banks. Then he forced Obamacare upon us, who really knows what’s buried in that bill. The stimulus was next, and continues since our government is still running without a budget. He captured control of the energy industry after an unintentional drilling disaster which he turned, somehow, into a criminal act.
He arbitrarily decided to take us to war in Libya without any approval from anyone (more on that later) in direct contradiction to the Constitution. Nobody called him on that effectively, he basically said “we went ’cause I said so…” He put troops on the ground in North Africa without approval, nobody noticed. His gun control mission started a long time ago, and again he doesn’t answer for Fast & Furious, executive privilege? He passes a message to Putin about how much more “flexibility” he will have after the election. Again he capitalizes on yet another tragedy to push his disarming of America agenda (the Brit’s tried this here too, a couple hundred years ago), he knows an unarmed America cannot resist tyranny.
I don’t need to dive into Obama’s history very far to understand that even if he was born in the USA (I have my doubts), he was not raised as an American, he has made that clear. Neither was his wife, or Jarrett for that matter. So obviously, they don’t put any credence into our traditions and principles. And I know I have left out a lot of “accomplishments” by Obama and company, I have been just hitting the highlights.
And the key to this puzzle might be in Benghazi. Not just the way it ended, with the deaths of four Americans, but with the entire mission there. And what did he threaten 30 survivor/witnesses, and their families and friends with, to assure their anonymity and silence. I can’t think of any other “secrets” so well protected (other than Obama’s ultimate plan). For example, the Bin Laden mission, details leaked from day one; the computer attack on Iran and many other things that would have been kept from the public eye. Yet the entire situation in Benghazi is still a mystery. There lies the keys I believe, and the only reason I can think of for such successful secrecy is the possibility that probable cause exists for arrest on the charge of treason, at the highest level and downward. Has the White House turned into a cover for a Continuing Criminal Enterprise?
I have not applied conjecture or opinion into this conclusion, just looking at facts, indisputable facts. At the facts indicate to me we have a government in place that is directly and intentionally taking us away from the principles our country was formed upon; I understand a little more about how our forefathers felt leading up to the revolution.
@SkippingDog: #97
Thanks for the history lesson. Even history I lived through I can’t remember the dates as well as I would like to, or the exact details as they happened. I put your John Adams quote in my Famous Sayings file.
@Richard Wheeler: #98
To me, there are more things to complain about today’s democrats than republicans, but it’s almost impossible to tell the difference any more. John Boehner giving obama his tax increase after Boehner complained about obama’s tax and spend philosophy is a good example.
I have mentioned different times that neither party has put Social Security in its own account like it was when it was created, or reduced the size of government, or started paying off our national debt, or ended earmarks and pork barrel spending, etc.
I wouldn’t say that I’m “carrying water for Repubs”. I doubt that you will find many comments from me defending very many republicans. Most of the time when others were saying which republican they wanted to run for president, I was saying I wanted Kane. I usually comment that I would like to see non-politicians run for office. I don’t like the way things are in congress, but if we keep putting politicians in office, we get the same thing. If you bake a cake, but use ingredients from different manufacturers, you still get a cake. I’m ready for some apple pie.
@Richard Wheeler:
You sound like a frog in the pot, enjoying your warm bath.
We can’t continue to print 1 trillion a year with no ill effects and when the effects come, they could be very bad.
I’m thinking of countries that have done the same thing in the past and how that turned out for them, do you think we are exempt?
Scott in Oklahoma
imagine if you had given the rest, how they would be acting on and up,
you would have cause a delirium to those of the left, they would have need a psychatrist
to take them in for a month of debriefing,
imagine half of AMERICANS inside the big house for a month of debriefing
along the dead DEMOCRATS WHO RISE FROM THEIR COMFORT ZONE TO BE THERE WITH THEM SEEKING DEBRIEFING TO BE READY FOR THE NEXT ELECTION.
IMAGINE THE PEOPLE, AH HA, AH AH AH
@Wordsmith:
Southern Poverty Law Center, Word? Really? You have to really be scratching the bottom of the barrel to even trust anything the SPLC has to say. Remember, this is the same group that when it puts out its list of terrorist groups in the U.S., not once has it listed any of the Islamic compounds that are spread out across the country. It doesn’t matter that these compounds are patrolled by armed (AK-47s) guards and surrounded by concertina wire and refuse to allow the police to enter.
So obviously, if some thug beats up a store clerk who winds up being Muslim, it has to be that the reason was his religion, not just the simple fact that he was a store clerk beat up by thugs?
Just how many times do you think that some of these events were simple confrontations that had NOTHING to do with the person’s religion, especially after CAIR has advised Muslims to claim “hate crime” status for any crime against them?
Shall we compare hate crimes against Muslims in this country to hate crimes against Jews, blacks and homosexuals in this country? Or shall I point out that the hate crimes against those of Christian faiths exceed the crimes against Muslims in just 2011?
Of course. Muslims have equal First Amendment rights. But I propose to you a question: why does our government continue to allow the threat that is posed by the Mosque in Falls Church, Va. where a number of the 9-11 highjackers studied and included Nidal Hassan as one of its former members? Do you think Imams there should be able to preach “Death to the Jews, Death to the United States” at Friday prayers?
Do you consider it a hate crime to preach hate from the pulpit?
JohnG. To me you sound like Chicken Little. Are you REALLY stocking your bunker er basement with aforementioned items?
How’s your son doing?
@Richard Wheeler:
Well, I guess since my grandmother stored enough canned food in the basement that would last our family for two years, and my grandfather had enough ammunition to last him two years, that would have made them radicals in your book.
Oh, wait, people in the ’30’s and’40’s did that? Wow! What a bunch of radicals Americans were back then.
Reto5 My question was directed to JohnG. asking confirmation of his #10.
Re your grand dad Not radical but certainly different than the vast majority of American citizens at that time.
btw I consider anyone storing weapons and ammo to combat a possible govt. attack paranoid at best, crazed at worst. Just me.
Semper Fi
@Richard Wheeler:
Different person, Rich.
@Richard Wheeler:
Actually, no, they were quite normal with the vast majority of American citizens at that time. Those who had gone through the Great Depression/Dust Bowl never forgot the lessons of being prepared. Now we have a vast majority of Americans who would not know how to grow a tomato if their lives depended on it.
Yeah, and 70% of the colonists thought the other 30% were paranoid. How many rights, as guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, are you willing to forfeit before you become paranoid? I’m sure you have no problem relinquishing your Second and Fourth Amendment rights, all in the name of a false sense of security.
I believe some people are really sticking their heads in the sand here.
History is often repeated, and it’s usually just as bad the second time around, or the third, or fourth, etc., as it is the first time.
Some of the people “stocking up” may be listing reasons that you left-leaners don’t necessarily agree with, but when the piper comes calling, they will be prepared. The real threat to our future is the financial mess DC is saddling us with. Nonchalant and uncaring attitudes towards the deficit spending. The continued printing of dollars backed by nothing more than a promise(we’ve all seen how concrete DC’s promises have been). Adamant refusal to acknowledge that the federal government has a spending problem, mostly by those on the left, but helped by certain characters on the right.
When the bankrollers from other countries are starting to take notice, and the credit agencies have already issued warnings, we aren’t that far away from a true fiscal meltdown in this country. And where we go, much of the rest of the world will go as well. Those dollars being printed up, flooding the market, will soon be worthless for anything other than starting a fire.
Doom and Gloom? Maybe. But read a little history on the Weimar, or Napoleanic France, or Russia, etc. Current events tell us that more and more nations are close to, or in, default. These waves come and go in cycles, and it’s usually only the strongest ones that survive. Post WWII, for example, the US was one of only a handful of nations not to go into default, but only due to the protectionist policies and large industrial base that had been built up.
Today, our industrial base is continuing to shrink, we have none of the protectionist policies in place that would help shield us from the world, or the world from us, financially, and we are barrelling ever faster towards the point of default. When you couple the massive amounts of debt the federal government holds, with the carefree printing of dollars we are involved in, the future, although not written in stone, is not looking very good.
The question is, what kind of government will rise up out of the ashes after the current one implodes itself?
By the way, for those of you making light of others who are “stocking up”, you should look into the makeup of people who are on the survivalist bent these days. These people are from all walks of life, from “both sides” of the political aisle, environmentalists as well as those who oppose them, gay and straight, black and white, male and female, young and old, from the kooky to the well-grounded, from well-educated to hs graduates. And the reasons for their stockpiling run the gamut from nuclear war to natural catastrophes, from financial blow-ups to tyrannical takeovers, from invasion of our country to insurrection within.
Now, I might make light of the reason for some of these people who are preparing for the worst, like those who believe the seas will rise due to AGW, but I’ll never fault them for preparing themselves for the worst.
Another question the libs can answer… why, in addition to the 1.6 billion rounds of recently purchased ammunition, does the DHS need to buy 2700 MRAPS (according to Gateway Pundit)? Can any of you describe a scenario in which an MRAP migh be necessary in domestic law enforcement? Especially in light of the efforts to disarmlaw abiding citizens…
@Scott in Oklahoma:
Because there are nuts talking about taking up arms against our government, Scott? That’s a pretty good reason.
@Scott in Oklahoma:
The ammunition purchase is an RFP that covers five years and supplies all federal law enforcement agencies for training and issue ammunition. If you’re in law enforcement, you know it takes a lot of shooting to develop and maintain proficiency. Divide your numbers by 5 and then divide them again by the total number of federal officers and students who attend training.
http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2012/apr/30/chain-email/chain-email-says-homeland-security-purchasing-many/
Ret05 Once again you misunderstand. Iwasn’t talking about your grandma storing canned foods. I was talking about your grandpa storing 2 years of ammo.It’s like when you misunderstood my comment on Gov. Perry. What’s your rush to put words in people’s mouths or totally misinterpret meanings as you’ve also done with Tom? Don’t you have enough ACTUAL ammunition?
@SkippingDog:
Your fact check site article is almost a year old. How much more ammunition has the federal government loaded up on since then, if, as politifact reports, the initial purchase was to cover a multi-year time frame?
@SkippingDog:
Those purchases cover not only the federal level, but also state and local law enforcement organizations which fall under the DHS umbrella.
Once the math is done dividing the purchases out over the five year time frame and divvying them up over the broad expanses of law enforcement levels that are covered, the numbers are far less controversial.
This has been covered repeatedly here but, for some reason, the facts seem to be ricocheting.
@Richard Wheeler:
I have plenty of ammunition. And buying more every day.
Oh, golly gee, Richard rushes to the defense of Tom. The very same Tom who has made the practice of putting words into other peoples mouth an absolute art form.
@SkippingDog: So that works out, according to the numbers in the article, to about 2400 rounds fired per officer per year. I can tell you for a fact that doesn’t happen. Basic training set aside, I would bet the average federal law enforcement officer might fire half that number, more than likely a quarter of that 2400 rounds per year.
As for the MRAPS, I know they were being purchased over a year ago, but I didn’t know how many; and I cannot imagine a domestic law enforcement situation where one would be needed.
@retire05:
Sorry. I’m sure that nothing short of a Robert Spencer think tank group study on anti-Muslim bigotry and hate crimes in this country would satisfy your suspension of disbelief.
Why am I not surprised you’re taking this position? So predictable. Looking at the list myself, I isolated some of the same incidents I figured you’d cherry-pick yourself and challenge. No problem if you want to be skeptical that some of these might be common thuggery and not “hate crime”, based on ethnic or religious prejudice. But your original claim was what again? And as I stated earlier, this list is by no means a comprehensive list of violence and bigotry against those who are associated with Islam/Middle East/Arab/Muslim extraction. Just a quick Google.
I have no doubt that there are incidents where things deemed “hate crime” based on race/ethnicity/religion was wrongfully characterized as such. But do you deny that incidents of anti-Muslim hatred and violence and bigotry have and do occur in this country?
Go ahead and knock down your own strawman if it makes you happy.
As a non-religious conservative who has always embraced our Judeo-Christian heritage and traditions and who deplores the militant atheists and secular extremists who wish to eradicate Christian elements interwoven in the fabric of our nation’s history and founding in favor of a multicultural one, have at it. Another strawman.
I just hope you are setting up a strawman you can actually blow down and not just huffing and puffing at bricks. Keep in mind the percentage number of Muslims to that of Christians in this country while you do your research, please.
@SkippingDog:
The ammunition purchase by the government, on the surface, is suspect, for a variety of reasons. However, there are also many satisfactory answers to most of the questions being asked about it.
In order to compare this ammo purchase, to what is claimed as a completely innocuous purchase, one must compare it to previous purchases. Unfortunately, DHS itself has only been around since 2001, though it encompasses many previous separate agencies and departmental security forces. I have yet to see how it does compare to previous large ammo purchases. Statements defending the purchase suggest there are 65-70k LEO’s associated with DHS, including Secret Service, SSA, NOAA, FBI, ICE, etc. Considering the amount, if purchased in one year, that is actually around 20k rounds per DHS associated agent. If spread over 5 years, we are at 4,000 rounds per agent.
Now, DHS itself has hired many new agents, expanding it’s workforce, since 2001, and it is unlikely that the needed, or desired, stockpile of ammo for use(training, service and otherwise) was up to the desired amount. That could be wrong, though, since as I said, knowledge of previous purchases by the government isn’t readily available.
It seems like the ammo purchase, while alarming, is nothing to be concerned about. However, people should still be asking the following questions about it;
-Why does the NOAA need 46,000 rounds?
-Why does the SSA have employees designated as LEO’s?
-Why the purchase of JHP’s, vice FMJ ammo, especially as it is suggested that the massive ammo buy was in part due to “saving money” for the government (for comparison, 20 rounds of JHP 9mm ammo costs as much as 50 rounds of 9mm FMJ target ammo)?
-Why, if this is so “normal”, did it lead to a severe shortage of ammo at everyone’s local gun store, to a point that months later, after the initial report, you still will have trouble finding certain calibers of ammo, no matter where you shop for it?
That last question could, I suppose, be answered by the fact that people saw a “need” to stockpile ammo, and hence, the demand far outstripped the supply. The problem with that is that the demand for ammo for private individuals only rose immediately following Sandy Hook, when people were concerned about knee-jerk reactions by politicians leading to gun bans. So, that last question still stands, at least in part.
Regardless of who you are, or what political spectrum you live in, such massive purchases by the government should, at the very least, give you pause to consider why such a large amount.
@retire05:
Yeah, I really hate the way Tom puts words in people’s mouths….especially when he creates fake quotes and then attributes them to others.
Oh, wait…..that was you and Dr. John.
I’m sorry….what were you saying again? I couldn’t hear you over the hypocrisy.
@retire05:
That’s when the RFP was issued for the ammunition purchase. Everything since then has been speculation about that purchase.
@Aye:
The numbers, when considering all agencies and groups falling under the DHS umbrella, are less controversial. No question. But they still present a problem, especially given certain factors regarding the ammo itself, who it’s all for, and other questions. I wouldn’t say that the purchase is “out of the ordinary”, but then, we really don’t have much to compare this purchase to, in historical terms.
In other words, I don’t think that the ammo purchase by DHS is something to be overly concerned about, but it definitely is something to keep an eye on.
@johngalt:
The NOAA has ammunition needs because it employs federal law enforcement officers.
The SSA has ammunition needs for the same reason.
Why do these agencies employ federal law enforcement officers? Because there is waste, fraud and theft anytime there is federal funding of a significant scale. The FBI is not nearly large enough to conduct every such investigation, nor do its agents always have the technical expertise required to deal with the specifics of a technical investigation. Most of the federal statutes addressing those agencies require an Inspector General with law enforcement authority, and that means sometimes arresting people who may be violent.
Current law enforcement training doctrine is that training should be done with the same equipment and ammunition that will be used in a potential confrontation. That ensures proper sighting for the rounds being used, gets the shooter accustomed to the actual recoil of their duty ammunition, makes sure the ammunition cycles properly in the weapons being used, and allows for economies of scale during bulk purchases – which is what we’re talking about here.
I suspect the shortage of ammo at local stores has far more to do with the panic being intentionally fanned by the firearms industry in order to move their products. You don’t have to be a marketing genius to recognize how fear is being openly used to sell firearms, ammunition and components right now.
@Scott in Oklahoma:
The most recent LE event I can think of where an MRAP would be handy was the crazed, ex-LAPD shooter in Southern California a few weeks ago. When you have an armed and barricaded suspect who has already killed several people, that additional level of protection makes a lot of tactical sense.
@Wordsmith:
Oooops, major fail, Word. I’m not a fan of Robert Spencer, or of Pam Geller or Debbie Schlussel (sp?). I think they are all alarmists who simply want to rile the masses. But the reverse side of the coin is that I also consider CAIR a dangerous, and subversive organization.
Sometime a crime is just a crime and has nothing to do with the victims race, ethnicity or religion. But there are groups, like SPLC and Cair, that would make more of a basic crime than is really there. They do it for political reasons. Remember, Eric Holder admitted to a Congressional hearing that “hate crime” laws were NOT created for those who did not belong to a protected class.
Of course, you will dismiss the stats, but here are the hate crime stats for 2011 alone:
Religion:
Anti-Jewish 771
Anti-Catholic 87
Anti-Protestant 44
Anti-Other Religion 130
Anti-Islamic 157
FBI stats for the years 2001-2011 reveal that the hate crime rate is:
Jews: 14.8/100,000
Homosexual/bi-sexual: 11.5/100,000
Blacks 6.7/100,000
Muslims: 6.0/100,000 (less than 1/2 what it is for Jews)
Feel free to check the FBI stats for yourself.
I would also point out to you that crime against whites, for reason of their race, are not always considered “hate crimes.” A prime example of that was the murder of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. In spite of the fact that five blacks murdered those two white young adults, the prosecuting attorney refused to take on the “hate crime” status due to the fact that the victims were not alive to give testimony that the murderers had uttered racial slurs.
The hate crime laws are absurd to begin with. It is giving a jury the ability to act as the thought police. If someone murders another, they should face the full extent of the law for the crime, not what they may have been thinking at the time. Perhaps you would like to tell me what percentage of the time a black person is being tried for murdering a Hispanic, Asian or white ever has “hate crime” charges lodged against them? When Hispanics in L.A. murder a black kid, how often do they have “hate crime” charges placed against them?
@johngalt:
BTW – as the snarky penguin found, there’s no evidence of any DHS or other domestic purchase of 2700 MRAPs anywhere except on some blog claims. If you can find any real evidence of such a purchase, feel free to share it here to support the outlandish claims.
Personally, I think the purchase of MRAPs by law enforcement would make sense, particularly given the ongoing claims of many here who are busily preparing their “battle rifles” for some confrontation with our government.
@johngalt:
Sorry – missed the link again: http://snarkypenguin.blogspot.com/2012/04/mrap-freakout.html
@SkippingDog:
The attack he was referring to was Khobar Towers on 25 June 1996 which killed 19 service members. Reagan wasn’t president at the time, Clinton was. As for the military, having served under presidents from Carter to Obama, I can tell you that Clinton was no where near as good or as respected by the military as G.W. Bush was. As for 9/11, neither Clinton nor Bush were responsible. AQ was. People pointing fingers at either one of the two presidents for something AQ did amounts to Clinton or Bush derangement syndrome.
@retire05:
Hate crimes are enhancements to other criminal acts. In your LA example, a hate crime is often charged when there is any evidence to support the premise that the murder or attack on the Hispanic man you describe was initiated BECAUSE he was Hispanic. That’s the key. It has to do with motive.
@SkippingDog:
You had me until your last paragraph. I would submit that your reasonings behind NOAA and SSA, along with the type of ammo being purchased, all are of sound logic and principle. That doesn’t mean, however, that people shouldn’t, at the very least, raise an eyebrow at it.
As for this;
That is pure BS. You are doing the same thing that you insinuate others here are, just from a different perspective. You claim it is marketing due to fear. I’d say you got the fear part right, but the source of that fear isn’t from firearms manufacturers. Or did you forget the outrageous gun control laws that NY just passed. Or the talk of other states and what they want passed. Or the talk in DC from Democratic lawmakers and what they want to see passed regarding gun control. Just reading some of the recent quotes from gun control nuts and politicians, coupled with what NY did, is enough to see that the fear is a rational one.
@another vet:
Military people liked GWB because he effectively rolled over and gave them anything they wanted. That makes some sense when you’re gearing up for a war like we were throughout the early part of his presidency. It makes less sense when the time comes to spin those war machines back down to standby RPM.
@SkippingDog:
I never commented about the MRAPS. Not sure why you are bringing that up to me.
@johngalt:
So Magpul’s little marketing ploy about dropping their magazines to “Free Colorado” isn’t about marketing? Nonsense. Read anything by the NSSF, NRA or any other gun industry these days and there is a clear message that the evil government is going to take your guns and ammo so you should stock up now. You claim otherwise doesn’t even pass the snicker test.
@SkippingDog:
Are you saying that if a black man rapes a black woman, or a white woman stabs her white husband, those are lesser crimes because they don’t involve a racial/religious component?
In cases, like murder, where the maximum sentence should be sought, what does adding “hate crime” charges do when the perp should already be getting life without the possibility of parole or a short walk to Old Sparky after a last meal? You can’t put someone to death for murder twice.
@SkippingDog: Yeah, one of them would have been handy in Waco Texas, or maybe Philadelphia in the mid 80’s. Even in the recent Southern California case, an MRAP would not have been useful at all. The use of that type of vehicle could encourage an increase of inappropriate use of force situations in many cases, but in the name of greater good I guess it would be okay… right?
@SkippingDog:
You saying that, without addressing the quotes and comments from the progressive left on gun control, and what they want to see, is willfully blinding yourself to reality. You can claim all day long that the gun industry is involved in manufactured panic, but that still doesn’t make it any more true. However, when the progressive left is openly discussing bans, along with confiscation(in some cases), the real source of fear is easy to see.
@retire05:
Good.
Agreed.
But sometimes crimes that are deemed “hate crimes” are just that. Take this story for instance. I suppose it’s possible that they were looking for a toy horse and all they could find was a toy camel. Just overactive imagination that ethnicity had anything to do with the crime.
I personally am not a fan of “hate crime” laws. A crime is a crime, regardless of what kind of thoughts propelled it.
Why should I dismiss them? If I actually cared, I could have looked this up myself.
As I indicated, it’s a strawman point because I never argued about which special interest group is the greater victim of hate crimes. I already suspected that anti-Jewish crimes probably would be in the lead. What I didn’t realize was that religious bias against Muslims account for the 2nd largest amount, behind Jews (62.3% vs. 13.3%). What percentage of the United States population is Jewish vs. Muslim?
Anti-Jewish hate crimes fell in 2011, btw (887 in 2010); and for Muslims, it’s been up by 50% since 2010.
You and I are on agreement here.
@retire05:
Not at all. In fact, it is possible for a hate crime to be charged based on gender as well IF THAT IS THE MOTIVE for the crime. If the motive is rage, jealousy, some other form of domestic violence or some other crime not associated with the race, gender or even the sexual orientation of the victim, then it wouldn’t be a hate crime.
Not all murders result in a death penalty, so your comments about multiple sentences wouldn’t apply in that scenario. A hate crime enhancement could well add 5 or 10 years to a sentence, whether it be for murder or for some lesser level of assault.
@Scott in Oklahoma:
If you followed the final gunfight in the SoCal case you’d find that at least one of the officers was killed on approach to the cabin. Approaching in an MRAP would have prevented that, if one had been available.
In the case of an escalating arms race with the government, the government is always going to stay ahead of the militia members and other fringe groups. Otherwise, we’d devolve into a series of regions governed by nothing more than private war lords.
@johngalt:
Believe what you will. But look at the ads on the websites for various weapons and accessories and then deny their intent to sell products based on fear. You can’t if you’re the least bit honest with yourself.
@SkippingDog: I did follow the conclusion to that situation, an MRAP wouldn’t have helped unless the intent was to burn down the house around him anyway. If that was the intent, I wouldn’t call that a good thing. Do you think that would’ve been a good idea? In my law enforcement career, all of it in urban environments, I cannot remember a case where an MRAP would’ve been a good thing to have.
@SkippingDog:
You also cannot be honest with yourself if you deny that the source of those fears, regardless of what anyone else says about them, doesn’t come straight from the actions and words, particularly recent ones, from the gun-control crowd. Without those sources of the fear, I’d agree that the gun industry is intentionally fanning the flames, and needlessly.
@Wordsmith:
Has there ever been a case of a man raping a woman because he loves her? Or a woman killing her husband because she loves him? How about thugs robbing a 7-11? Do they do it because they love the 7-11 owner? All crimes of violence have some element of hate. To make it a racial/religious debate is simply another case of pandering to those who push racial divide already.
Why do you think that is? Do you think there was all that much animus toward the Japanese before Pearl Harbor, or were they simply people that few Americans gave much thought to? Same with Muslims. Who the hell even discussed them prior to 9-11? Yet, as you admit, it is the Jews, not the Muslims, that suffer the most from religious animus.
Seems to me if you want to compare religious animosities coming from those who have a platform to speak about it, the press seems to think that it is more than legitimate to trash Catholics, yet these are the same people who are quite reluctant to discuss any crime committed by Muslims, or the persecution of Christians in Muslim nations, just like the lunatics at NOW are reluctant to discuss the human rights violations against Muslim women in ME countries, or even discuss the rise in black on white/hispanic/Asian crime.
@Scott in Oklahoma:
Did you ever have to recover a down officer or victim from an open field of fire? I have, and an armored vehicle provides the only real cover you can bring to that threat environment.
@johngalt:
Why would proposed changes to our firearms laws cause such fears? Not liking a proposed law is one thing; being fearful of it isn’t rational at all.
@SkippingDog, I have rescued people as well, and there are plenty of other options, including the everyday handy issued patrol car to take cover behind. Are you one of those people who rant about the militarization of civilian police departments? Just curious.
As for the changes in firearms laws creating fear, I’m glad you don’t feel threatened at all about the loss of ability to purchase them. Gee, in Colorado they are thinking about banning pump shotguns…
@Scott in Oklahoma:
It’s interesting that you continue to frame the discussion that way when you’ve obviously had plenty of blow-back on your piece and you haven’t addressed the specific criticisms sent your way about the original post; you just keep introducing new arguments. To be honest, individual errors aren’t my issue with your post. Your disagreement with the President regarding his policies, or you personal dislike of him as a person, aren’t my issues. You have a right to your opinions. But floating bogus conspiracy theories and being an alarmist can have real world consequences. Perhaps waging war on the government and having an excuse to shoot fellow citizens you don’t agree with politically will always remain just a fantasy to you, but for others that might not be the case. I also find it the height of hypocrisy to frame your response to a hypothetical tyranny that doesn’t exist in terms of justifying an inevitable slide into a state where you have no choice but to perpetrate domestic violence. What is more fascist than sending out the message to those who exercise their freedom of speech, but don’t agree with you, that on some future day they will receive “no quarter”? And all this is predicated upon your ” instinctive “bad guy warning bells””? It’s completely irresponsible what you’re doing, and the reason why just makes it ridiculous.
@SkippingDog:
Now that is either being naive, or willfully blind. Do I need to run down the list of passed/proposed laws themselves, along with the list of gun control quotes by those on the left?
A fear induced by factual evidence is rational. Missouri Democrats, for example, introduced a bill in February banning certain types of firearms, most notably “assault” type firearms. If the bill had become law, then Missouri residents would have had 90 days from enactment of the law to turn in any firearms on the banned list. Confiscation. Does that sound like the fear isn’t justified?