Or did the gods invent Mondays in the first place just to spite us? Winter arrived yesterday evening and today we took our first dogwalk in it. That is, I stomped along determinedly while the dogs, in their rain jackets, stared at me aghast and demanded, “Can we go home now?” While winter here in the NorthWET doesn’t involve six-foot drifts of snow or 30-below temperatures (ah, fond memories of Wyoming and Minnesota!), it tends to arrive as suddenly as if someone up there dropped it on our heads. Cold needles of rain are here to stay. —– And of…
Category: Guns and Gun Rights
Of course.
It’s just talk so far. And European talk, at that. So take it FWIW. But if banks impose negative interest on customers, controls on withdrawals won’t be far behind. NSA-proof wallpaper? Faraday cages for all! (H/T Laird in comments) We must have common-sense sword control NOW! Fedjudge says DEA raids on legal dispensaries in California are against the law. The more news and studies that emerge about Obamacare, the more horrible that horrible program looks. (When companies can manage to get around federal regulations, this is the way humane and profitable health care gets done.) Peter Schiff writes an eloquent…
Funny; “job stress” never caused me to get drunk and bite anybody’s you-know-whats. A bad day at work ever had that effect on you? A bad year? (H/T jed in comments) Speaking of the you-know-whats: Nicki gives a “gun owner who favors gun control” a kick in his. Medical costs going up-up-up? Well, we all know they have been. But more recently, if these stats are correct, medical costs have stabilized. Medical insurance costs, OTOH … Be sure to register that drone you get for Christmas. Did Congress pass a law about this? Article fails to mention such. ADDED: Some…
A reader emailed about this encounter: Just had a hair raising close call here. One of my neighbors has two very large German Shepherd dogs. He lets them run loose when he is with them and they never seemed to be a problem until today. I carried my 9mm carbine down to the fence along the road today because those two dogs were chasing one of the horses just across the road from me. He was kicking at the dogs, and darn near nailed one too. The dogs didn’t seem to be trying to bring the pony down, but they…
Oleg Volk observes that psychopathic bullies prefer to kick kittens rather than wolverines (and draws a lesson from this). And on a perhaps related note … We noted in a recent links section that a third state (Oregon; home of BHM) had started legal cannabis sales “and nobody cared.” Well, somebody did. Oregon’s first week of sales beat Colorado and Washington combined. We live in a world where “experts” say that executing a 12-year-old playing alone in a park with a toy gun is “reasonable.” The eight best war cries of all time. In somebody or another’s opinion. Hm. I…
First time commentor Larry L wrote the other day:
I’m not sure what to think about this stuff every time somebody does a multiple murder with a gun.
Everybody trots out their well developed positions with their talking points and talk past each other. The people who are scared of big fierce looking black rifles want all the guns confiscated etc. The people who have their fierce black rifles will only give them up from their cold dead hands etc. Okay, everybody has made their point(s).
There are still x number of people in a theatre/classroom/church/someplace that aren’t coming home today and what are we as a society or civilization going to do about it? I don’t have the answer but shouldn’t we at least ask the question.
Not to single you out, Larry L, but I suspect that a lot of people who don’t believe they have a dog in the gun-rights hunt ask themselves questions like this when these horrible mass shootings hit the news. So I’d like to try to answer your question, which I’ve bolded up there.
Still working on that blogosaurus. So close to done. But I’m helping to put up siding today and I’m not sure how long or steadily I’ll be required as a construction minion. So here are some links for ya. Oregon legalizes pot and nobody cares. Good one from Kevin Wilmeth. “Outsourcing Empathy: What Could Go Wrong?” (Was saving this to link from my blogosaurus, but what the heck.) Courtroom DNA evidence: it goes the way of so much other prosecutorial “science.” (H/T S.) “Why we should just nationalize Facebook.” Um … no, “we” shouldn’t. Even if “we” had the authority…
Stirring myself to the right words after One of Those Tragedies always takes a while. First, there’s the dragged-down feeling of “here we go again.” The antis rush gleefully on stage to perform their blood dances and once again, decent people need to respond to them, if for no other reason than to keep the record straight.
We can’t even stop to speak with decency and sympathy for the horrible losses because to speak at all is to become political. And that’s obscene.
Mass murders, whether by bomb or knife or vehicle or poison, are horrific individual tragedies. But mass murders by firearm result in a dreary sameness.
Except this time.
Give ’em hell, Nicki! Alas, here is a gun owner who very, very much seems to get it. Then doesn’t. Australia’s notorious gun confiscation didn’t work as well as hoplophobes claim — and wouldn’t work here. (You already knew that, didn’t you?) Father of wounded Oregon student refuses to participate in Obama’s political display. Local VIPs aren’t planning to welcome Our Glorious Leader either. J.D. Tuccille: With 3D printers, all things are possible. And so are all panics. Media more deadly than “gun nuts.” (Stolen from Joel) John McAfee brings his famously wild brain (and unfortunately a lack of solid…