In case you’ve been locked away from the world for the past 3 weeks, the big story is that a 20-year old idiot from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, south of Pittsburgh, came within fractions of an inch from assassinating Donald Trump at an outdoor rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, north of Pittsburgh. Most of the left-leaning media outlets think that the big story is Kamala Harris’ ascendancy to Democrat Presidential nominee. Perhaps, for them and most Democrats, Kamala is the big story, but having a presidential candidate under fire is a bigger story because the entire relationship of Americans to our federal government was under fire when the supposed lone, crazed gunman pulled the trigger.
The Secret Service, singularly responsible to protect Trump and other presidential candidates, is unable, 17 days later, to answer logical, basic questions about how this amateur assassin managed to get bullets downrange nearly killing the candidate. They claim he fired 8 bullets, but have offered no proof of that claim: no acoustic tracking, no map of the other 7 bullets or comparative ballistics for them. They have said that they collected 8 shell casings from the roof where he ostensibly fired those 8 shots, but those are not proof: it’s easy to drop a few extra casings, especially if you know the caliber of the rifle in question.
Secret Service has not established that there was only one, inexperienced shooter; nor, to Prudence’ recollection, has any congress-person asked how many shooters there were. The only acoustic tracking we’ve seen seems to indicate 3 separate shooters at 3 different distances, and fewer than 8 shots altogether.
Somehow or other, one of the “counter-snipers” positioned on the sloped roofs of large sheds behind the bleachers closest to Mr. Trump’s podium, shot and killed Thomas Crooks within seconds of his first shot – ostensibly the one that nearly killed the former president. It has not been explained how the shooter, obviously a very good shot at the range between himself and Mr. Trump’s head, would have time to pull the trigger 7 more times. Maybe he did. But, it would dispel many obvious questions if ballistics information about the bullet fired through Trump’s ear and those that wounded two other men and killed a third, were released. If they all came from a single weapon, why not make that information public? Is that a conspiratorial question?
In three public hearings and, evidently, closed-door hearings in Congress, very little solid information has been presented to questioners, whether by the offensively obtuse Ms. Cheatle, or her deputy, now acting head of the Secret Service, Ronald Rowe, Jr. who, at least LOOKS like a Secret Service agent. Nor has the FBI been especially helpful, even though they are doing the “investigation” into what went wrong and how the first-time shooter evaded Secret Service “professionalism.”
Supposedly, the SS agent in charge of the protection planning and laying out the security for the rally, and for coordination with critical local police assets, is the single, most responsible person who failed in his mission resulting in the near assassination. The new acting Director of the Secret Service refused to name that person since he is still on the job somewhere, still cooperating with the investigation… yada, yada, yada… and possibly still a nice guy. No, the new acting Director couldn’t explain how that person made so many mistakes and oversights, but, by golly, he intends to thoroughly figure out what happened “… so that it never happens again!” He couldn’t predict when that incompetent boob will be relieved of duty, either.
Every person who has testified in Congress has referred to “the shooter,” the weird Mr. Crooks. “The shooter,” “the shooter,” “the shooter.” Are they simply cementing the concept of a single, lone, independent individual who cooked-up the plan to kill Donald Trump for undiscoverable reasons? Any day, now, the cyber-might of the FBI will crack into Thomas Crooks’ encrypted websites and learn of his motives and whether he was involved with foreign interests. Go for it, guys! You’re the best there are!
A picture has emerged over the past 18 days of “investigation” that portrays near-total incompetence on the part of the Secret Service in preparing for this outdoor rally and the “protection” of a former President. But, that’s only one image that might be developed from the evidence testified-to, gathered and recorded by rally-goers and professional photographers. The other image is that of a plot to kill Trump, whom most of the deep state hates. There were simply too many gaps in “normal” security… too many ways, particularly in communications with local and county police assets, that standard protection protocols were skipped, ignored or thwarted. Indeed, the only LOGICAL pattern to that day’s failures (July 13th) is that there was an intention to facilitate Trump’s assassination. Such would have solved the deep state’s biggest threat. Hmmnnhh.
So much speculation. Those of us who have been praying for this nation are waiting to see God’s hand at work reforming our moral platforms, perhaps penetrating our wayward churches, perhaps loosening the chains on our public education. Can He cleanse higher education, as well? Of course. Those with eyes to see and ears to hear are in for a period of joy. To the less-inspired, if you have been hoping for a sign… well, there you are.
Joe Biden threw down a challenge to the Almighty the other day: he would get out of the campaign for re-election only if God Almighty told him to get out. Hmmnnhh… sometimes the observer is too close to the signs to see them – forest for the trees, and all that. JOE! JOE! Heaven to JOE! If you can’t take a bright, shining slap to your psyche, you will not like the two-by-four on the side of your head. Take the hint, Joe… please!
All of the pablum comments about “lowering the temperature” of political discourse, are no more than political comments uttered by the unaware. We need to recognize that God is totally unimpressed by politicized speeches, statements, position papers and other modified forms of bull-hockey. He cares only about your soul and the love in our hearts. The hatreds are our business, alone.
Political campaigns are staffed, in part, by professional liars. Prudence doubts that this fact is actually a good thing, or good aspect of human endeavor in any case. It will be interesting to see what changes might manifest in the output of campaign drivel. Will it become more principled? Will it add to Americans’ understanding of the Covenant aspect of our exceptional Constitution and Republic? Will anything be conveyed in place of standard calumny and excrement? There’s is a lot to watch and listen for. Which campaign will actually improve the level of “unity” in these great United States?
The “LEFT,” so called, is a wide, stinking river of anti-American opinion, calumny and hatreds of multiple kinds, cobbled together to defeat conservatism. American conservatism doesn’t really fit anywhere on the spectrum from LEFT to RIGHT as typically distinguished – most of the distinguishing being done by those on the Left.
As much as possible, the original founding ideas of “America,” were developed in concert with the principles of Judeo-Christianity. Key to the non-religious basis of the American Republic is that equal application of the Law applies to everyone. This concept is a continuous lesson in Biblical writings, and we see it in the balance between FREEDOM and RESPONSIBILITY. God’s instruction to mankind is based on FREE WILL, but it is bound by the responsibility to answer for the consequences of our free-will decisions. (As ye sow, so shall – so MUST – you reap) This fundamental concept is the basis of our Constitution. For humans to establish a government that can so closely reflect the fundamentals of both the Old and New Testaments, is a small miracle. The alternative to the Constitution is the mix of philosophies we call “the Left.”
As illustrated in virtually every Bible story and book, those who stand up for God are almost immediately attacked, if not killed. From the very start: Garden of Eden, the “serpent” employed the process of dialectic materialism, as in Marxism. God commanded Adam and Eve to not partake of the Tree of Knowledge in the center of the Garden, else they would die. The serpent argued that the benefits were even greater than god inferred, and that despite what He said, surely they wouldn’t actually DIE for gaining the knowledge of the Gods. God stated the Thesis (God’s Word) the serpent argued the Anti-thesis, and the net result became the Synthesis. Adam and Eve were not struck dead, but they were Banished from God’s bountiful Garden, thereafter forced to struggle in lives of constant testing and difficulty. The process of dialectic lying has never changed: Abortion is not murder; unborn babies are not humans with souls. The synthesis is not an alternate truth… it is an alternate lie that is easier or more beneficial for people to believe. The process leads to Communism: the exact opposite of our Constitutional Republic.
When the United States of America was formed, it stood against thousands of years of evil and tyranny, much of it represented by Royal families. The forces of the Left almost immediately started to undercut the new government, an effort that truly shifted into gear following the Civil War. For 150 years we have been bending to the blandishments of dialectic materialism. Today we’re $35 Trillion in debt, borrowing at an unsustainable rate to maintain astonishing welfare outflows, while reducing our ability to physically defend ourselves!
The Left has insinuated its socialist-communist forces into the Deep State, into public and private education, into higher education, into globalist corporations and communications. Just look at the list of “Americans” who attend the World Economic Forum and who are comfortable with the influence of the U. N. and the World Health Organization as it attempts to gain treaties with developed countries that would place the W.H.O. in charge of NATIONAL health-care policies and much more. It’s time to put Satan behind us.
The United States, due mainly to failures in education and religion, has accepted anti-Americanism to a great degree. Every principle embodied in our Constitution is challenged constantly by some form of anti-thesis, usually couched in this or that sympathetic concern for poor, hungry, fat, disabled, dysphoric, addicted or homeless misfortunates that the ‘fortunate’ are obligated to pay government employees and contractors to make comfortable. Those same employees or contractors are rarely paid to solve life’s many misfortunes. Providing real solutions to how people became so unhappy and uncomfortable is perceived as cruel, racist, or insensitive, and frequently, illegal. Both the government and the social problems become larger. Thesis – anti-thesis – synthesis.
The other day a “lone, crazed gunman” came within an inch of killing Donald Trump. As things ramped up for the Republican National Convention, the love for Mr. Trump seemed to expand and motivate the assembled crowd to new heights of love for him and his “larger than life” status in the party and in the country. For Trump, however, the events of Saturday, July 13, 2024 re-oriented him to his true status: mortal. They made clear to him that he is not larger, but smaller than he thought; that he is a tool in the hands of God, to Whom he owes his continued life on Earth. The mission has changed.
The divine intervention that saved him also makes clear that there has always been a plan and purpose for the creation of the United States of America. One hopes that the many uncertain Americans who may have suspected some kind of “purpose” for America: Free-Masons and all of that, might experience a renewal in their faith, having witnessed a pretty clear message from the Almighty. The Lord works in mysterious ways. For Trump, there is a new reason to do his best for America – new reasons to stop our self-destruction, stop our acceptance of Marxism / Communism, stop our un-Godly drift away from faith and truth. For those of us with eyes to see and ears to hear, we should be ready to help him… or, help ourselves.
Sometimes it takes weeks, months… even years, to expose vital truths to the American public. In some cases, decades must pass, as with the Kennedy assassinations in the ‘60’s, before key truths can be revealed – or leaked. Prior to ‘revelation’ there are elaborate, importantly-named and populated panels, commissions, studies, even trials, that present a carefully devised narrative for Americans to swallow, if not digest. It has been apparent since the end of World War II and the nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union (The Cold War), that the “deep state” (mainly the “Intelligence Community”) has been controlling news about hundreds of politicians, appointed leaders and major thought leaders in education, communications, medicine and religion. Few honest individuals are able to withstand, let alone RESIST the kinds of disinformation our shadowy governors can manufacture. Politicians, in particular, generally find it most profitable to join sides with the “Intelligence” (not to be confused with “Intelligent” ) community. Those same become quite wealthy, stay in office for decades and reliably vote to fund the desires of said “community.”
If you’re not convinced of this process / system of shadow governance, just consider the strange case of Joseph Robinette Biden.
Now, at what should be Mr. Biden’s closing chapter after nearly 60 years “in government,” We are spectators to a careful removal of, now, President Biden, from his positions as both president and candidate for re-election, despite his advanced age and physical and mental decline. Rank and file Democrats believe that their party’s “leaders” are struggling to work out a comfortable way to convince Joe Biden to give up his position as candidate so that he can retire with some sort of honor at the end of his presidential term. In fact, Prudence is sure, what is in the popular arena is the public face of a deeply internal campaign guided by the “Intelligence” community. The flip side of this is the set of questions concerning Donald Trump: Having watched the virulent reactions to Trump’s first term, including all the collusion AMONG FEDERAL AGENCIES to confound his administration and officials, and now, the largely fallacious indictments of Trump and many of his associates, the cautious observer must conclude that what the “deep state” might do to prevent Trump’s re-election, has not all been done, yet.
Will “they” try to kill him? It’s not a silly question. A case can be made that “the CIA” was involved with organized crime to assassinate John Kennedy (crazed lone assassin) and, most likely, to assassinate Bobby Kennedy (crazed lone assassin). The CIA has certainly proven its prowess in conducting coups in other countries. Americans must not overlook that virtually everyone holding power in the “intelligence community” is also a so-called “globalist.” Like all self-empowered authoritarians, the greatest attraction is not the status quo, it is expanded power over more people. That appears to be: having power over other countries, not just the United States. If you think the deep state does NOT control the government of the U. S., you aren’t paying attention.
Sadly, the possibility of Trump’s assassination was made manifest a few hours after the words above were typed. By God’s grace, during a Rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, Trump turned a couple of inches one way instead of the other and the marksman’s bullet hit only his EAR. If you think the threatened ‘deep state’ won’t try to kill him, you haven’t been paying attention.
How the details of who the shooter was and how the lapses of fairly basic security are explained in the coming days, will tell those with eyes to see and ears to hear, what the Hell is going on in our government.
There are those in government and several media outlets and public employees union halls who are saddened, this morning, by the shooter’s failure. From Joy(less) Reid to Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff and Liz Cheney, to Barack Obama and several Bidens, people are moping around about how close we’d come to solving so many of Democrat’s problems. God forbid. Was this 20-year-old motivated by some of Joe Biden’s filthy rhetoric or was he hired to do this? For those in the “intelligence” community who had plans to carry off precisely this sort of operation by a “lone, crazed gunman,” this failed attempt is going to make it harder to succeed, given all the fresh scrutiny and inquiry.
We’ll hear all about young Thomas Crooks in the next so many days. He’s the lone crazed gunman who was shot to death after he failed to assassinate Trump. None of it will be particularly illuminating. To Prudence it will be like the weasels putting the fox on trial following an attack on the chickens: a cover-up.
When tyranny threatens, elections are months away.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL MILITIA
The evolution of American constitutionalism responded no more to the several theories of rights and representation of the late 18th Century, as much as to the necessity of freeing ourselves from the shackles imposed by the British Crown and a non-representative Parliament. That freedom would not have been won without “Militias” – home-grown assemblages of armed citizens, by definition, non-governmental organizations. Our Constitution references these quasi-military, self-selected groups of passionate defenders of farm, family and business, in the Second Amendment.
The potency of the Second Amendment is rarely mentioned. Everyone argues over the “… right to keep and bear Arms…” Opponents of gun ownership point to the first phrase, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, …” as if it referenced what we now call the State Police, or even “State Militia” which are controlled and limited by our friendly and benign state governments. Some liken the term to the National Guard, which is even further off the mark. “Militia,” in the Second Amendment, refers to self-declared and assembled, armed, private-citizen organizations. It is not clear that such organizations are legally tolerated today.
In fact, there are a number of such groups around the country: legal gun bearers who come together like clubs, perhaps including some militaristic training. They tend strongly toward white-guys, exclusively, sometimes religious, generally anti-federal government. Unfortunately, there is a parallel tendency toward racism, but the number of incidents in which members of such “clubs” attack blacks or others is very, very small… no way comparable to the numbers of blacks who attack everyone else, although never being charged with “racism.”
Militias have a bad name. Still, they are a part of the patriotic front that challenged and stopped the British in the 1770’s, and which became part of the “official” Continental Army under general George Washington. They were tough people, supported by equally tough wives and relatives, both farmers and merchants. How would they fit in to today’s social fabric and political landscape? They are referenced and promoted in our Constitution, but universally denigrated as, mainly, racist crackpots playing with guns.
“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State…” What “state” were the framers talking about?
At the time of the fight for independence, the “states” were colonies: 13 separate entities with separate civil authorities appointed by the King or by his governors. To become sovereign states they had to both rid themselves of British governors and soldiers, who were the “police,” as it were, and then establish their own authorities with elections, appointments, codified laws and relatively independent courts. They had, also, to defend themselves. Automatically it became obvious that the colonies had to stand against the British together, else they’d be militarily quashed separately. Without much debate, they formed the Continental Congress and a sense of “nation” was established across fairly diverse colonies. A common enemy will do that.
Militias, essentially, were folded in to the individual colonies’ “Minutemen” forces and ultimately into the Continental Army, but not all of them. Many Militia fighters served key roles in interfering with British supplies and cavalry, harassing them like guerilla fighters, sometimes providing a flanking force when standing ranks faced off on battlefields. However, by the time of the war of 1812, militias were relatively unheard of. Citizens were still armed, but the U. S. Army and Navy then formed the military wherewithal of the new nation, calling up fighters from the states, each of whom represented their states as much as they did the United States.
The Constitution acknowledged and stipulated the importance of “militias,” and stipulated the right to keep and bear arms, but militias, themselves, faded from prominence.
By the end of the Civil War there was no question that the military forces were U. S. forces, and the federal government took on the costs and administration of veterans’ disabilities and welfare. States had police forces, but no longer raised their own “regulars” or trained or equipped them. Militias, if such can be identified at all, devolved into chapters of the Ku Klux Klan, constantly ginning up anger against negroes – a most despicable era of American history. Roughly speaking, the “Union” army and victorious states were “Republicans;” the former confederacy and the Ku Klux Klan itself, were “Democrats.” Democrats supported gun control laws, among other segregationist restrictions, to keep guns out of the hands of blacks. To maintain power and influence, the Klan, like revolutionary militias, had to constantly exaggerate the presence of a common enemy: free negroes.
“Militias,” now, are perceived as kooks. Any concept of forming armed forces to overthrow “the government,” is inherently illegal, and only a tiny fraction of Americans in either party think it’s either practical or legitimate. Yet the concept of non-governmental militias is Constitutional! Where could “militias” fit in? First, they’d have to meet standards. Their fellow citizens would have to trust them in terms of public safety and support of the Constitution, itself. Then what?
Somehow, some way, militias would have to coexist with police forces, both municipal and state. Participation in “Guardian” training and functions is a good place to start.
The Guardian Program, yet to be adopted anywhere, is designed to “legitimize” concealed carry, in a sense. The Constitution already protects the right to keep and bear arms – carry them around, in other words: to be individually armed. As a Guardian, the person who is willing to carry a firearm would also be trained in handling, safety and safe reaction in the presence of a crime or imminent criminal act. That person would also wear a “9-1-1” transponder that would identify and locate the individual and alert police forces to a possible active-shooter situation. Meanwhile, the guardian would take such action as practical to defuse a conflict or stop criminal action until police arrived.
Finally, the guardian would be shielded by special indemnification for legitimate and proper actions taken to stop criminal actions, whether on his or her own property or in public. “When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.” The truth of that observation is timeless. Establishing “Guardian” legislation enables the multiplication of police power and effectiveness at very low cost. It also provides vectors for evaluating gun owners and their family environments. If such gun owners formed the core of “militias,” governments and citizens could have confidence in their judgment and rationality.
Militias could also be held to ethical standards. Non-guardians who “joined up” would have to swear to certain behaviors and practices concerning gun ownership, handling and safety inside and outside of their homes. Militia organizations would be subject to fines for failing to adhere to ethical standards or for failing to reject or eject members who fail to do so. Such information would have to be shared with law-enforcement and become part of the unacceptable persons’ records. Most Militias would form through “Rod and Gun” clubs or hunting clubs or “Sportsmens’ Clubs.” Whether they could remain associated with those clubs would be a decision of the club, not of any government. How would a Militia function politically? How would the majority opinions of a Militia or dozens of Militias, enter into public policy or political power? Who would their “common enemy” be?
By definition, the “common enemy” would be our own federal, central government at the moment it is perceived as tyrannical. We have major political forces who are enthralled with government by experts – the bureaucratic state. Decision-making by and for individuals is anathema to these leftist “Progressives.” They are also anti-religious, increasingly opposed to free speech, virulently opposed to the second Amendment as written, and socialist in economics and social organization. Many members of a militia organized to monitor and resist – if not remove – tyranny in our central government, would count “Progressives” among the tyrants. A militia formed by progressives, for such there could be, though unlikely, would see themselves as saviors and conservatives as the common enemy.
Obviously, those most attracted to “militias” would be vilified and hated to greater degrees as members than they are, if at all, as relatively quiet, unobtrusive neighbors and co-workers.
Militias would tend to be somewhat secretive in their meetings and deliberations. Using common social media communications would leave them open to attack and interference. They will want to network – and perhaps coordinate – with other militias through a modern version of “Committees of Correspondence” as was done in Revolutionary times, when their discovery would have resulted in arrest and torture. If not actual secrecy, strict confidentiality would be essential to operation and growth of militias. But, how, short of taking up arms in fact, would constitutional militias influence political, governmental actions and direction?
Clearly they would have to be financially independent of government support or tax abatement or tax-free status on any places of meeting or practice / training. They would be subject to continuous hate from leftists and racists, for they would not be able to control militias from the inside. They would have to be scrupulous about opening membership to anyone who met their standards of behavior and ethics, which standards would include legal gun ownership, by definition. But, again, how would a militia influence political power? Could a militia sway the votes of others?
Communications, communications, communications. As with the Committees of Correspondence, militias would have to present factual and documented positions on the actions of government(s) and of elected or appointed officials. They would have to lay bare the nature of tyrannies large and small that made clear the un-representative nature of those in power including, most specifically, the expenditures of public monies. To do so would mean operating publishing businesses in both print and digital formats. Since a militia would not be a political “party” or be attempting to run candidates of its own, its publications would have to be both historical and current, and easily comprehensible as to how an issue/ topic either resisted tyranny of the state (or municipality) or fit into a tyrannical or potentially tyrannical action that threatened Constitutionally guaranteed rights or the freedoms of individuals.
Would anyone care if they did this work? Would citizens listen? Militias, like those that deposed tyranny at the inception of our country, have an obligation to pursue wisdom and to act upon it. The first militias had the wisdom of recognizing tyranny and of how to multiply their effectiveness in fighting it. It led them to wonderous courage and sacrifice. To fulfill that legacy, Constitutional militias must form with that same sort of commitment. Membership would not be a sport or part-time interest. Just as “the Left” maintains decades, if not centuries, of commitment to upending Biblical truths and models of behavior and governance based on individual freedom and responsibility, Militias must maintain a singular purpose to inform other Americans of the lies and evil of Socialism and Communism, backed up by the ability to risk everything to overthrow tyranny in defense of the American Way.
The creation of one militia, independent and uncorrupted, will bring forth many others, and their creation still more. We have learned after dozens of congresses and hundreds of representatives and senators, that the election of readily corruptible men and women who enter office with pathways of personal wealth and influence providing them all too many comforts and excuses for failure, has not – and will not – bring about the change needed to save and preserve our nation, our Constitution and our integrity. A well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free State.
PARKLAND, FL – FEBRUARY 18: Shari Unger, Melissa Goldsmith and Giulianna Cerbono (L-R) hug each other as they visit a makeshift memorial setup in front of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Facts are part of the problems that must be solved to prevent “school shootings.” Everyone who is distraught about yet another mass murder of our most innocent and, in every case, unprotected children, has facts about the incident, about other, similar incidents, perhaps about certain guns or numbers of bullets in a clip, and about what various public or political leaders have said about the same subjects. Facts, however, are often mere data-points and not necessarily good anchors for solutions or even “truths.” Those require judgment, balance, cool reasoning and imagination.
For example, we have learned that Salvador Ramos, the sick, troubled 18-year-old who had considered, if not planned, to shoot up a school for at least FOUR YEARS, had managed to buy two AR-15 model rifles and more than 1,500 rounds of ammunition. Those are facts but they don’t lead us to any solution. Some have said, in effect, “He should never have been able to buy those items!” They are absolutely right, but why? Because no one should be able to buy them? It is a Constitutionally protected right; do we throw out our right to self-protection because a crazed teenager committed a terrible crime? Some believe that removing the rights of law-abiding Americans IS a solution. It’s not that clear.
Ramos was known to be disturbed and dangerous for at least 4 years. He was arrested and held for mental evaluation at age 14. Nothing was placed in his record. Four years later he appeared to be a legal 18-year-old ADULT when he went to buy a gun, BUT HE SHOULD NOT HAVE appeared so! One has to ask why we have background checks if no data is going to be added to that background? Legal, licensed gun owners are fully in favor of realistic registration and licensing… not to punish gun dealers, but to keep guns out of the hands of people too unbalanced to handle the responsibility of gun ownership. If regulations are not designed to assess responsibility and balance in individuals, then they will likely reduce freedom and rights for honest citizens, which is not the covenant the Constitution is based upon.
We could list all the mistakes made on the day of the event in Uvalde, but few will listen because they already “know” some un-Constitutional restrictions are the “real” answer.
Here’s another set of facts: somewhere between 600,000 and 2 Million times a year (fairly steady data over the past 20 or more years, including studies by beloved, official agencies), private gun-owners stop or prevent crimes, almost always without actually shooting a gun. Even if it were only 1,000,000 times a year, that’s an average of 2,740 incidents a DAY that a criminal act is prevented or interrupted before police could arrive on scene. It likely prevents several hundred other crimes that would be perpetrated had the “perp” succeeded in the interrupted one. Civil society would be almost impossible without private, legal gun ownership.
In fact, legal gun owners – MOST ESPECIALLY NRA MEMBERS – are the least likely demographic to commit crimes in the United States! Why is the NRA hated and vilified by so many? Perhaps it’s because they do not compromise on the Constitution, whereas one political party, and politicians individually, are constantly trying to soften the restrictions placed on them by the Constitution… especially on the Left. One can look not so far back in history to see that authoritarians, dictators, fascists and Communists consistently move to disarm their populations. Why are America’s “leaders” always trying to do the same? Perhaps they dream of leaving the home of freedom and its massive responsibility, and joining the club of dominance, repression and never having to answer to anyone or for anything.
A known screwball, virtually unchallenged by those well-paid and trained to challenge and STOP nuts like him, is allowed into a “gun-free” school where, again, he is not challenged for an HOUR or more, during which he completes the murder of 19 children and two teachers. Before the little bodies have cooled off, leftists began clamoring to take guns away from honest citizen-gun-owners, especially if they are members of the NRA! It makes only twisted, leftist sense while offering no solution to mass shootings. Yet anyone who tries to point out all the failures of existing gun laws or of police agencies is vilified and accused of “having blood on (your) hands.” What rot.
No gun, hand or long, has ever shot a bullet by itself, but people who are the most ignorant about guns have labeled the scary-looking ones as “assault” rifles. Somehow, the scarier the appearance of the rifle the more likely it is to have its own intentions. Augmenting the intentions of the shapes, springs, nuts and bolts of a rifle are the declarations of the frightened that “no one needs a rifle that can shoot 10, or 20 or 30 bullets without reloading.” Alternatively, those scared or angered by the shape of rifles climb a little higher upon their dudgeon, claiming that, “no one should be hunting a deer by spraying it with bullets from an assault rifle.” Finally, something that has a kernel of truth, although it’s not the argument that will expose a solution to the vulnerability of school children.
Prudence’ task is not to defend AR-15’s or any other legal weapon; the purpose at hand is to figure out how to keep bullets fired from ANY weapon from traveling toward a child, in school or anywhere else. This is the point, is it not?
First, without destroying any part of the Constitution, let’s “harden” the schools, themselves. Make it a rational process to get into school buildings, and have an armed guard at the point of entry as children arrive and leave. Have facial recognition systems that identify any adults who may be connected to a student, there. Have metal screens that can block doors and windows by remote control, and panic buttons that start recordings of every hallway, office and classroom, as well as immediate surroundings, as they summon police electronically. Along with this there should be at least a handful of staff who are exceptionally trained to fire back at shooters with AR-15-type weapons that are locked in a gun safe or safes inside the school. Schools would become very UN-inviting targets, rather than corrals for “sitting ducks” as they now are.
All of these steps only apply where people who think children are entitled to grow up, live. They aren’t designed to help anyone’s re-election.
What about “common-sense gun laws?” Apparently, there aren’t any since all of those proposed don’t add to anyone’s safety. But there are rational, Constitutional regulations that increase both freedom and public safety, and they should be employed before anyone loses his or her unalienable rights. Here are a few:
First, teach children about guns, safe handling, the law, and responsibility. We seem Hell-bent on teaching kids how to have sex, with NO responsibility, while non-marital sex ruins more lives than guns each year – many time over. Prudence would start gun clubs and teams around the 7th or 8th grades, with severe consequences for irresponsible handling of any firearm, even to the point of delaying the age at which a person can legally buy a gun or be licensed, should he or she not take school gun courses seriously. Such training and practice would also reveal certain psychological problems or tendencies around guns that could bring useful counseling into the picture. It would also prepare youth for later military acceptance should they choose that form of service or career.
Firearm skills can be the basis for healthy competition just as golf, tennis or basketball skills are. Sharp-shooting is hard. Learning the mechanisms, maintenance and proper handling of a weapon is no more likely to turn a teen toward murder than learning how to cook with sharp knives, hot oil or heavy frying pans. But it will reveal tendencies to ignore safety and propriety and some other reasons for denying or delaying later gun ownership. It is infinitely safer than school-age sexual experimentation. Being taught to be afraid of guns is both illogical and immature. Guns are tools, in a sense, like baseball bats. They can’t shoot themselves any more than a bat will hit a pitched ball by itself. They should be learned and understood: it’s part of growing up in America. After learning about them one isn’t forced to own or deal with them later in life; he or she should know the rights and responsibilities that connect to guns… it’s part of the Constitution, after all.
We all should fear the warped intentions of the few who are willing to commit gun-shot murder, itself, or to enforce surrender by the victims of other crimes. Many of these intentions can be discerned well in advance of the commission of criminal acts, including school shootings. Whether in Newtown, Connecticut (Sandy Hook School), Parkland, Florida (Marjorie Stoneman Douglass High School), Uvalde, Texas (Robb Elementary School), or even in Littleton, Colorado (Columbine High School) and elsewhere, the troubled mental and emotional states of the perpetrators was well-known to many, sometimes for months or years. Parents knew, school officials knew, fellow students knew. In some cases, police, mental health services or agencies, even the F.B.I.(!) knew of threats to “shoot up” a school and did nothing or blame some bureaucratic error for doing nothing in time to stop the impending murders. To solve this problem, the Biden administration and other dim bulbs want to take away legal weapons owned by law-abiding, stable citizens. That’ll work.
Another approach consists of “Red Flag” laws, where guns might be removed from people who appear to be unstable in some way, or criminally inclined. A strip-mine dump-truck could fit through that legal loophole as currently proposed. But maybe a form of pre-emption would be Prudent; maybe clear heads could craft laws that preserve due process and the Constitution while minimizing the likelihood of future crimes. Instead of punishing people for their political views by accusing broad groups of Americans of some “ism” or other, observations of aberrant tendencies could be acted upon in special, secret hearings that won’t destroy suspects’ reputations. Would this mean executing an arrest warrant? Not necessarily.
What if a plain-clothes officer arrived at a residence to interview the person named – what sort of document would he or she have that might convince the resident to allow entry? Could it be created and presented without creating a permanent “black mark” on a suspect’s “record?” Could the “accuser,” or, at least, suspicious observer, remain anonymous throughout the process to avoid retribution? What about when the suspicious observer is a member of the suspect’s household? Will the revelation of the suspicions aggravate family tensions? These are all factors that must be dealt with before police legally try to take guns away from a licensed owner.
Perhaps gun training in school would help create a profile that would enhance the licensing process for certain individuals, keeping guns away from potentially unstable young adults. We know the profile of instability; couldn’t we be just a little more careful in the presence of that profile? Even Prudence would agree to some limits. Why is the “solution” proffered by leftists ALWAYS confiscation and banning?
One of the “commonsense,” but dopey ideas that is often mentioned on the left, is some form of personalized connection to one’s firearm. That is, a fingerprint or palm-print has to match before the gun is operable. This is so impractical, especially at times of emergency, that it literally negates gun ownership for any of those one-to-two-Million prevented or interrupted crimes each year.
However, as is popular for certain cars, the gun could be rendered usable only in proximity to a key-fob type, RFID device. Even if stolen, the gun would not be usable without gunsmithing work. The proximity could be so localized that children handling the gun would be prevented from accidental wounding.
It seems obvious that “protecting children” is not the purpose of Democrat-proposed “commonsense gun laws.” Protecting children could start in any urban ghetto by enforcing mandatory sentencing for illegal gun use or possession. Hundreds of children, mostly teenagers, kill one another with illegally possessed AND used guns, primarily handguns. If arrested, so-called “gun charges” are routinely plead down specifically to avoid incarceration, which is so unfair if a perpetrator’s skin is brown. Disproportionate impact.
By the same token, they could protect kids who are struggling to be born… if they cared about children. There’s certainly disproportionate impact on unborn babies with brown skin. But those killings aren’t murders – killings with guns are. Yet, they continue, despite all gun laws to the contrary.
Are we interested in preventing school shootings? Protecting our children from sexual abuse in grade school? Protecting our children long enough to be born? How are the children, anyway?
Students are on the march. They have taken aim, so to speak, with a blunt political weapon, egged on by liberal, which is to say, leftist educators and a leftist press. Interestingly, these kids’ targets are placed before them specifically for them to “shoot” (their protests) at: the National Rifle Association, conservatives, Republicans, right-leaning news outlets, writers and columnists, anyone who defends the Constitution and, of course, Donald Trump. Left out of the group of targets are incompetent law-enforcement officers, organizations and bureaucrats who prefer to not enforce laws that already restrict guns and owners. Left out are liberal policies of “mainstreaming” the mentally ill and the lawyers and psychiatrists who will bring Hell-fire upon anyone who presumes to restrict any psychopath who has demonstrated the will to kill or injure and who has stated a desire to do so, even when the intended target so referenced is a school.
And so they march. Their weapons are their youth (so excessively revered in modern society), crafty signs and posters, memorable slogans and non-stop publicity through like-minded broadcasters and publishers. What do these school-age pawns believe will be accomplished?
Well, they want “more gun control laws.” After all, if (name the psychopath) could not have obtained his (99% ‘his’) “assault rifle,” those dead students would not be dead today. It’s as plain as the noses on our faces. There is a raw, unattainable truth to their simple demand. Unfortunately, that truth cannot be realized without rewriting the Constitution (of which most people under, say, 40, know very little), and the institution of police tactics intended to confiscate virtually every gun held by legal and, one would then hope, illegal gun-possessors in the country. There would then need to be imposed truly draconian restrictions upon every port of entry and airport to prevent the entry of firearms into the country. Maybe we could start with the illegal gun possessors without shredding the Constitution.
Ain’t gonna happen.
For those on the leftist spectrum, the dis-arming of the civilian population is an essential step toward creation of a more perfect nation. For Mussolini, Hitler, Lenin and Stalin, and every current far-leftist, disarmament appears vital to their ability to maintain control of the lesser civilians who are harnessed to support their governments. Now, being harnessed to support a domineering government is something Americans understand more than our founding fathers ever could have feared, but no dictator has ever encouraged private gun ownership. This might be instructive, were we possessed of eyes to see, ears to hear and sufficient historical knowledge to appreciate.
Our agitated students have not been so blessed, and happily accept some hours out of school and bright publicity on weekends as they perform the blathering their leftist mentors could never do.
Let’s suppose, children, that AR-15’s and other scary-looking rifles were banned tomorrow and quickly confiscated by the New American Gestapo. How much “safer” would you be, in your gun-free zones? Suppose some pathological idiot wanted to solve some twisted problem he feels the victim of, by shooting some kids at his school. He would be reduced to bringing 2 or 3 semi-automatic handguns and some extra clips – relatively easy to hide – and secreting them in strategic places where he could get to them on the fateful day.
The dark day comes, on his sick calendar, and he grabs a handgun and starts shooting. Does the fact that he’s not employing a rifle make a damned bit of difference? Wouldn’t you be praying for someone to shoot him? Would you be comforted by the confiscation of millions of citizens’ lawful firearms, some of whom would have resisted, being killed or criminalized and incarcerated on your behalf? After a few minutes of open season on students will you feel better when the police finally kill or arrest the wielder of a handgun rather than the wielder of a scary-looking “assault” rifle?
If the rifles were painted red and the handguns painted blue, would the absence of red guns make the recipients of blue guns’ bullets less dead?
To you the obvious response is to ban those kinds of guns, too. You are being raised as fools. Your excited demonstrations make clear your incomprehension of the exceptional origins of this nation and of the freedoms you enjoy. I hope you become more broadly educated after the public schools are done with you.
“School Shootings” are among those events that tear people apart and, roughly, along the widening “liberal-conservative” divide. Certainly adults in both frames of belief have children, send them to school, love them dearly and do what they possibly can to keep them “safe.” How is it that they can’t agree on how to do so? Again, both types of parents love their kids.
The same divide produces separation on “rights” of a thousand kinds, on the role of governments in individuals’ lives, on the role of education, itself – particularly so-called “public” education, and even on the role of parents, themselves! Into these widely divergent sets of opinions let’s inject the subject of guns and of the Second Amendment. After all, many fear that the greatest threat to children’s well-being is of being shot inside their gun-free schools. A wide divergence, indeed.
Along with other divisions between the two generic groups there seems to be one along military lines. There are a thousand nuances, but in general conservatives are more in favor of military training, discipline, duty, honor and bravery, than are liberals. Liberals are more in favor of government in its own right, more inclined to favor extremely personal “rights” to be codified, protected and even enforced by government, and to that degree, liberals also favor police in their roles of enforcing “civil rights,” a somewhat malleable term.
Conservatives also honor police but rather more for their quasi-military structure, honor and daily bravery. At the same time conservatives see police as potentially threatening to constitutional rights, even twistable by “government” to control populations rather than to protect them. Many questions arose as part of the Valentine’s Day school shooting in Parkland, Florida: questions of policing, of guns, of safety, of parenting, of news… and of government.
Quite distinctly, liberals believe that one or another form of “gun control” will make school shootings and other crimes where guns are employed, impossible. This is not unlike liberal beliefs about governmental programs like public housing projects, in which residents of such projects will become more responsible toward themselves and others by virtue of having a decent place to live. The same could be said of liberal attitudes toward most welfare programs. In a generic sense, liberals believe that government in its great wisdom and goodness will make better citizens – better humans – than develop naturally or, incredibly in their view, by the hand of God.
Conservatives tend, generally, to see guns as protective devices in at least as great a degree as they might be offensive. Almost automatically conservatives respect and honor the Second Amendment and the civil right of gun bearing. Where liberals think that guns are the problem, conservatives think that criminals are the problem; where liberals fear guns, increasingly as they appear “scary;” conservatives respect their power and uses. Where liberals are frightened of and purposefully ignorant of guns, conservatives see mechanisms that may be learned, understood and mastered with a set of skills. The demands for “solutions” to school shootings following the Parkland “snafu,” exist in two separate universes.
Liberals want government to modify humans by legislating limits on their rights and actions: ban certain guns (scary ones), raise age limits for gun ownership and more. Conservatives want a form of the “Guardian” program1 where sovereign individuals accept the training, risk and responsibility to protect themselves and others by arming themselves – including in school environments – and being willing to confront bad people using guns, and other weapons, offensively.
Liberals, including most teachers these days, fear guns, themselves. They see the gun as inseparable from the person wielding it. That is, the gun: metal, machining, grip, trigger, sights, barrel, caliber and bullets it holds – is as evil as the criminal prepared to use it against innocents. No way can a liberal accept having that evil object anywhere near a school. “Guns in classrooms? That only puts us and our students in greater danger!”
Conservatives tend to be quieter about guns. They don’t fear them but they do feel that it’s necessary to learn about them, get trained to use them1, get trained to deal with active threats, and, in general, they feel that concealed carry by a trained individual is a wise, sensible response to armed threats. In other words, they believe in deterrence rather than response.
Response is a problem in every shooting incident. Effectively, the only good response to an armed, crazed potential murderer is an armed challenger who is prepared to fire in the moment. Schools could be turned into vaults with armored doors, metal detectors, and even Kevlar backpacks, but waiting for the potential murderer to arrive to a gun-free zone like a school and responding by hiding, simply means that it might be a tad more difficult for the killer to kill, but not at all impossible. A couple of minutes are all it takes, whether firing an AR-15 or a 9 MM pistol, to kill a dozen or two defenseless kids and nearly helpless teachers. In 3 to 5 minutes armed police could be on site, but those minutes are all that are needed to complete a tragedy as we too recently witnessed.
If first responders then fail to act in the most defensive, responsive way possible, then the number of dead will be greater. There is no alternative… in the moment.
In order for gun bans to make a difference in actual school safety, there will have to be an enforced confiscation. With millions of guns in private hands this presents the likelihood of resistance to such an action. Will police then shoot at citizens who have never committed a crime with a gun except to own it? Can such an ex-post-facto offense legally be imposed? Can the right to bear arms be subsumed by popular emotion and civic policing? It would seem that both eventualities are impossible. But the demand for them fits the essential liberal opinion of guns, gun-owners and the Second Amendment. All three are equal, and evil.
Liberals hate guns and, given their automatic equivocation of guns and owners, they often sound as though they hate their owners, too. This fits with liberals’ disrespect of any who fear government more than guns. Most of the “statistics” that gun haters cite are untrue, as are most crime statistics, themselves. Gun advocates are just as ready with inflated statistics of their own. We have reached a point in the national debate over guns and rights and of wrongs and rights, when gun haters owe it to themselves and to the nation… and to schools and children, to grasp some realities about private gun ownership and their positive impacts on crime and social order.
The vast, vast majority of gun owners are not criminals. There are more than 70 Million gun owners and more than 210 Million guns. Among the 210 Million about 6 Million people own half of them. Many gun owners have one, two or three, a rifle and a couple of sidearms. A large subset of gun owners are active hunters and they may own 5 to 10 weapons: a shotgun or two, three to five rifles and two or three handguns. Millions of guns are old, collectible, rarely even handled, much less used for anything. A significant number are antiques.
But Americans own a lot of guns… gun ownership is part of America, part of our founding and heritage, written into our constitution and a legal, civilian right, like other civil rights, in fact. Part of the chasm between beliefs is an urge and effort to, in effect, “un-do” America. Our Judeo-Christian fundament and all the laws and traditions that flow from it, are, today, offensive to this group. The definition of words and terms that describe the ideas and nature of “America,” are being changed daily. There is a large and apparently growing segment of the United States that desires to “fundamentally change” America. Those are they for whom “sovereign citizenry” is an affront, believing that a benevolent, socialist government is the only locus of trust in our society, never a sovereign individual.
Guns and self-defense are part of U. S. citizenship. The more stupidly we deal, socially, with this fact the more times defenseless people will be victimized. If we follow the concept of banning certain guns, now, upwards of 200 “types” of firearms, the net improvement to the safety of defenseless groups, most specifically and almost most defenseless, schoolchildren, will be approximately zero. In a weird way the next school shooting is almost looked-forward-to by some rabid segments of leftists, for it will help ratchet up the demand for greater restrictions on the ability to own as well as buy or, likely, even manufacture certain types of guns. The intended eventuality is a gun-free America.
That is to say, a non-American America, their ultimate goal.
Extreme defenders of the Second Amendment exclaim numerous statistics that are just as extremely “debunked” by anti-gunners. Reviewing numerous studies over the past two decades one can learn that there are many, many thousands of instances of crime prevention thanks to civilian, legal gun possession. There are probably not a million a year or two million – that is unknowable since most events are not newsworthy or even part of police reports. But, there are thousands. Even the Clinton administration, in studies2 opposing guns, found upwards of “1.5 million” yearly armed self-defense incidents. Even “simple” female self-defenses against sexual assaults number over 100,000 events per year.
Let’s consider that there are, say, 400 thousand such events of various kinds. That’s in the order of 1,100 events per day –a significant quantity. A certain fraction of those would have resulted in physical assaults and murders… perhaps what, 1 in 20? 5% of crimes? Are those lives not also of value? Is it the position of anti-gun advocates that people have an obligation to remain defenseless, accepting rapes, beatings or worse while police are either on their way or, more likely, totally unaware of the event?
Is not self-defense of oneself and family the most fundamental of civil rights? Can that be truly equated with the utter failure of law-enforcement in the matter of the Parkland massacre? Or of the Fort Hood shooting? Or even of Columbine where the weirdness of perpetrators was well-known in advance?
Anti-gun advocates need to recognize that there could barely be a civil society in the U. S. WITHOUT private gun ownership, guaranteed by the Second Amendment.
The atrocious murdering took barely ten minutes. It is very likely that not one person who was killed or wounded one Sunday afternoon in Las Vegas, knew the man we are told was their killer. Ostensibly Stephen Paddock had been accumulating weapons for “years.” He sent his “girlfriend” back to her native Phillipines two weeks ahead of the carnage he was planning, and then wired her money. He may have been trying to set up a shooting a week or more earlier but couldn’t obtain the rooms he needed for his desired perch. So, it’s possible that all of the weapons, volumes of ammunition and loaded clips, and other preparations were solely the work of one secretive, virtually unknown man. Maybe.
The current profile of Paddock indicates that he wanted to shoot at country music fans. On the other hand, he was a Democrat. Does that paint him with a group identity that explains anything? He owned guns – like 50 to 80 million other Americans. That makes him part of the American “gun culture.” It hasn’t been reported whether he owns a power drill or handsaw, or possibly a router, like 50 million other Americans, so it’s not clear whether Paddock was part of the “power tool” culture. However, he must, must, be placed in a hated group and “gun owners” will do perfectly.
One reporter has already been fired for stating that country music fans were likely “Republican gun-toters” who deserved no sympathy. She made the mistake of stating how rabid leftists feel, and that’s a political no-no.
Legal gun owners woke up Monday, October 2nd to find that they were all potential murderers, kept from shooting up public gatherings, nightclubs, elementary schools and churches only by the thinnest of membranes between sanity and insanity. Who knew? Paddock had prepared his “blind” to be relatively immune from armed response. Most of these kinds of attacks place the shooter(s) at the scene where, in good likelihood, armed targets could have shot back.
What liberals never consider, and gun owners fail to proclaim, is that every year in the united States, more than 800,000 times (not every instance makes the papers), a private gun owner stops a crime or a criminal, usually with NO shots fired. In many instances, a non gun-owner overpowers an armed criminal and wrests a weapon from his hands and subdues him. Eight hundred thousand (some estimates are well over a million) are a lot of incidents. Essentially, open America could not maintain a civil society without private gun ownership. Oh, the horror.
The alternative is a police state. Thoughtful people should realize that they do not really want to live in a nation that will confiscate private property that is deemed undesireable by the government! Some think that that same government will somehow add to “freedom” by limiting it… so long as the limits are placed on the “group” they don’t like. Those same accuse President Trump of being “Hitler,” when the exact opposite is the case. Those who want the government to have more power to regulate this or that disapproved group, are playing the game that Germans played as Jews and Slavic peoples were systematically rounded up, stolen-from and finally eliminated in camps. Oh, the ignorance.
It should be clearer, by now, that individual freedom is the most precious of jewels, yet faced with freedom’s challenges, leftists are quick to trade it away for shifting quantities of safety and even for convenience. For shame. While a crude freedom, the ability to self-defend is excruciatingly fundamental to individual freedom. Yet the first reaction of socialists and communists of every stripe (stay mindful of the fact that Hitler, that old ultra-left socialist, disarmed Germans, too) is to limit this fundamental freedom.
In the United States, with supposedly universal public education, the most costly in the world, the lessons of history and the majesty of the ideas of America, ought to be fully appreciated. But, on balance, it appears that the rest of the world appreciates our exceptional promise of individual freedom, far better than we do, ourselves.
Freedom is a tremendous threat to socialist, controller types: those who naturally gravitate toward governments everywhere, especially bureaucrats who, never neutral, impose increasing structure and regulation on populations. By establishing itself merely as well as was done in 1776, the idea that created “America” out of disparate colonies has forever drawn enemies and subversion, and lately, outright attacks.
None of that speaks directly to Stephen Paddock’s craziness, but to the distinctly divided reactions to it. The “Left” immediately wants to restrict everyone’s rights to, theoretically, prevent future murders, mass and otherwise; the “Right” wants to enforce existing laws and employ better methods to inhibit crazy people and proto-criminals from obtaining or using weapons, including strict sanctions on less-murderous misuse of weapons. We can’t make the wild actions of one deranged screwball into a pattern that justifies attacking our rights.
What we can do is share information to identify unusual purchasing and collection patterns that might identify individuals who are potential threats. But we must guard our Fourth Amendment rights. The visceral urge to control people in order that they’ll be “safe,” cannot be allowed to subvert our privacy and personal sovereignty. Paddock was a monster and he’s now dead. Let’s not destroy our freedom because of him. Far, far more people are killed by handguns involved in gang and drug activities, almost every month.
We don’t count the innocents aborted by the tens of thousands.
It is time that we institute a national program I call “Guardian.” The Guardian program will be populated by men and women who are trained to take emergency defensive steps in all sorts of venues, and who are willing to carry and employ firearms as part of those steps. Each would be carefully investigated by the U. S. Marshall service, and trained, at partly their own expense, at certified gun safety ranges and, later, at police academies in each state. The idea is that these thousands of individuals would have a form of interdiction powers, such that one might stop an incipient crime or shooting by presenting his or her weapon and a trained stance, in situations where an idiot wielding a firearm would have expected no resistance whatsoever.
Copious history supports the likelihood that a fool with a gun will usually abandon his plans and submit or attempt to flee when faced with a defender with a gun. At the worst, like the examples of Adam Lanza at Newtown, or James Holmes at Aurora, Colorado, or even the two dopes at Columbine High School, a single armed and trained individual would have stopped the carnage before or immediately upon its beginning in all three of those circumstances.
Guardians would also be equipped with “911” buttons, so to speak, that would be required equipment anytime they are carrying a firearm. One push of the button would open a 911 channel unique to that purpose, such that the wearer could explain what was happening as it unfolded. Police could respond at their fastest, knowing it was a potential shooting incident, probably active.
Guardians would be insured under a federal policy, and held harmless from prosecution unless true negligence were established. It will be at some risk that a gun owner might submit to the rigors of Guardianship, but, aside from announcing the existence of the program and the numbers of Guardians in the country, neither their identity nor their locations – even generally – would be published.
Obviously they would be witnesses, but perhaps better-quality witnesses – part of their training. Masking their identities at trial is not an insurmountable problem.
Many of the objections raised to the free exercise of 2nd Amendment rights eventually come around to “that’s not the kind of country we are,” or, “we aren’t that kind of people.” Such statements are correct, in the worst way. America is increasingly occupied by who must be seen as “non-Americans.”
That is, there are, ANNUALLY, many thousands of illegal and legal entrants added to our population, who have no desire or intent to “become” Americans. In other words, they are not interested in our culture, morals or heritage of individual responsibility. Many of these entrants and immigrants, come to the U. S. for no more than personal gain. They may work, but this means “under the table” for a large number. They may be granted refugee status and this provides various forms of welfare support without waiting, and it is as likely as not that what is claimed to earn “refugee” status is a lie. They may have a distant relative already here, making it easy to “win” welfare status.
They may simply be criminals, drug merchants or otherwise, ready to take full advantage of liberalism’s open arms. Despite their receipt of welfare and education, these criminal types remain members of criminal gangs who ply death amongst us.
The rise of indigenous gangs is another source of extreme criminality that soft hearts and softer heads attempt to explain, rationalize and justify as a fault not of the criminals involved, but of society -American society – itself.
None of these sources of sociopathy can be traced to the mere availability of guns, nor to the legal ownership of guns, regardless of number. What these sources have done, similarly to the influx of Italian gangs in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, is to introduce a new element of danger and criminality to American society, with two significant differences.
One is the scale and reach of modern criminality – largely connected to drugs – which reaches down to virtually every street, unlike “organized crime” that may have profited from many streets, but which limited its murderous effects to rivals in its own universe. The other is that, today, murder is a way of doing business, even crappy, penny-ante neighborhood-dominance business. Kids are being shot before they can overdose.
The conditions for widespread death-dealing are a direct result of federal policiy failures. Yet many are afraid to recognize – or are blind to – that fact. As suburban kids, from “good” towns and families run a race to eternity with heroin, fentanyl and pain-killers, not always beating the cops with the Narcan, at least not the first time, more and more parents, police, teachers and counselors are asking why things have sunk to this.
Having porous borders for not just the past 8 years, but for the past 30, has promoted the hard drug trade like nothing else. Instead of delivering drugs to retailers, loose immigration has enabled larger-scale wholesalers to establish themselves in every metropolitan area and in many mid-size cities. Drugs, now, are delivered in tons rather than pounds. Shipments of cash in return are measured the same way.
A federal administration that prevents arrest and deportation of illegals only compounds failures of policy marking the last 30 or more years. Compounding that, the policy of releasing convicted criminals, mostly drug dealers – re-defined as “non-violent” offenders – has made a mockery of federal law in general, and a mockery of the oath by every member of our armed forces, to “…support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…”
Finally, we have entered a period of social confusion that seems more concerned with the misfortune of criminals than with that of their victims. A new faith in “rehabilitation” has infected our judicial network and we are less safe. Some can be rehabilitated, and God bless them. The other 80% of violent offenders – and I include drug dealers – will not be. Yet we feel compelled to parole them, somehow, to test arcane psychological theories. No one involved is held accountable when a parolee murders an innocent, and we are less safe.
Combined with the influx of new criminals from outside our borders, we have created our own, unfolding tragedy. Gun ownership is a perfectly logical reaction; self-defense an inherent right, the Guardian program a wise extension of those rights. I strongly encourage its adoption.
The second amendment is also an area of increasing logical failure. And factual failure. The killing of innocents is a crime no matter how much news is generated. When a group of innocents are killed, and the news multiplies, along with public upset, and the killer has used a gun to do the killing, there is no longer room for common sense. All gun owners are blamed… and responsible.
Guns are objects, mechanisms, machines. None does anything until intimately directed by a human. Ahh, but they facilitate the doing, don’t they? Any sane proto-murderer would blithely discard whatever hatred, passion, ill-will or socio-pathology that may have bubbled up prior, when faced with the lack of a firearm. Right?
Well, no, silly, but at least he or she won’t be able to kill as quickly as he or she might with one of those… those… scary-looking GUNS. For Heaven’s sake, use your head!
Maybe that’s right; how silly of me.
On the other hand, Timothy McVeigh managed to quite efficiently eradicate 168 of our fellow citizens and injure nearly 800 more without a single bullet or gun to fire it.
Oh! Be serious! An act like that takes a lot of planning and preparation. Most gun-involved deaths are spur-of-the-moment acts of passion or stupidity. There’s no point to be made bringing up Oklahoma City.
You know, you’re probably right… if your point is how the government can make it harder to be an efficient killer. In fact, that is where the argument is, isn’t it? If we can somehow make murder by amateurs harder to do, we’ll save a few lives. And, as any person who shrinks from the silhouette of a scary assault rifle will quickly tell you, “If it saves only one life of an innocent child, it’s worth it!”
Maybe that is sufficient reason to lop off a chunk of the Constitution, but I’m not so sure. To start with, look at the nature of past and proposed gun bans and their possible positive impacts.
The 1994 “Assault Weapons Ban” had a nebulous impact on U. S. so-called “mass murders.” A stricter ban in Australia appears to have had a more significant effect on multiple-murder events, there, but a single statistic does not a story tell. There are so many social-demographic differences between Australia and the United States that a far broader analysis is needed before we should try to set public policy (and Constitutional subversion) based on an apparent impact on a very different population.
Most of the parameters of the “ban” were derived from the appearance of the weapons, and not their functions. The one key exception was the size of the magazines, which could have a limited role in inhibiting a mass-murder. How would that work?
Suppose the situation were like that at Newtown, Connecticut. A sick, twisted, bent-on-mass-murder dope breaks in to a purposely gun-free school. Instead of a 20 or more cartridge clip, he is limited by the availability of no more than 9-shot clips. So, he brings 2 extras, with one in the rifle. As soon as the first few shots are fired, everyone is scrambling to save him or her self or to protect the kiddos. No one is charging at the murderer. When the clip empties there would be a brief quiet period – but very brief: maybe 5 seconds while the clip is popped and a new one inserted and the slide pulled to “cock” the rifle again. The next 9 shots will fully terrorize a grade-school staff that is not only ignorant of firearms, but who fear them, firing or not.
Murderous dope will get his 27 shots off with no problem. If that Newtown numbskull had more clips he could have walked to another classroom and murdered some more people. He shot himself when police arrived, evidently acting out a suicide ritual he had long contemplated.
So the 1994 “Assault Weapons Ban” would have made no difference unless the rifle, itself, had not been available at all. In all likelihood, the difference would have been that the murderer would have made more shots with pistols. One can imagine that in lieu of a large-magazine rifle, our knucklehead would have brought maybe 3 or 4 handguns and equally terrorized the school’s population with 20 to 30 bullets fired slightly slower than with a scary-looking Bushmaster. No one there was prepared or equipped to challenge him, either physically or psychologically. Dope’s mom could have prevented the tragedy by keeping her legal firearms away from her known-to-be-disturbed son.
Essentially, all the non-NRA proposals that have spawned from the Newtown tragedy will have one basic effect: children in school buildings will be left defenseless, but, since murderers will eventually be a bit less efficient, a few fewer kids will be murdered than otherwise. Hopefully, mom and dad, your defenseless kiddo will be one of the lucky ones.
Those who are aiming at complete confiscation of all but BB guns, could, if their hare-brained concept ever comes to pass, conceivably save most of the TWO hundred lives lost to non-drug, non-gang, non-criminal gun events each year. They might prevent a few suicides, too, and consider the loss of freedom well worth the cost.
What they won’t prevent are the tens of thousands of criminal gun events, because criminals don’t register their weapons and can hide them fairly easily when the Gestapo comes looking for them. I hope that no one reading this is looking forward to living in a country that can even attempt to confiscate private property (or forcibly buy-back) from tens of millions of owners. It’s the same country that doesn’t enforce the gun laws it has now.
All plans for restricting guns and their law-abiding owners can be seriously considered only by putting on blinders to some serious, serious reality. There are many myths that liberals and those further left, continuously proclaim as truth, and which all the people that matter believe. Here are a few:
• The presence of guns will spur an increase in gun accidents, stupid gun crimes, and random, foolish shootings. The opposite is what reality is, in fact.
• Attackers will take a defender’s gun and use it against him or her. This happens extremely rarely, and can be made even rarer with proper education. Rare means a literal handful of times each year. It is more common that unarmed defenders wrest weapons away from attackers.
• Gun deaths increase, overall, because of the availability of so-called (ie. “scary-looking”) assault rifles. In truth only about 6% of shootings involve such weapons, and not even 6% of deaths. Most deadly shootings are done with handguns, often with small calibers.
Finally, the far more important statistic, the far more life-preserving and crime-preventing statistic is this one: EVERY YEAR IN THE UNITED STATES, PRIVATE FIREARMS ARE USED IN SOMEWHERE BETWEEN 830,000 AND 2 MILLION DEFENSIVE EVENTS. Most of these involve no discharge of the weapon, but not only lead to hundreds of thousands of apprehensions, but prevent many tens of thousands of other violent crimes because perpetrators encountered an armed defender, leading to arrests. The logical argument is that we could not enjoy a civil society without private gun ownership.
The only truly effective change that should come from Newtown, Aurora and other such murders of defenseless innocents, would be to teach gun safety and handling to every child, starting around age 8 or 9, including proper self-defense. Teach it right in public school. It is certainly more productive and worthy than lesson plans based on homosexuality and gender-identity problems. Worse, they teach kids how to have sex “safely” in far too early years. There are thousands more lives ruined with pre-marital sex by kids, than by guns. Taking away the unalienable right of self-defense, and damaging the Constitution in the process is a “solution” that deserves the very highest skepticism and suspicion.
