I want to say Happy Birthday to Dr. King. Martin Luther King was a man of great character and still serves as a good example and I believe that everyone could profit if they took some time to learn a little about him. The Reverend fought for equality among men and envisioned a world where the petty little differences that set us apart--things like skin color--would no longer matter. He died fighting for this ideal twenty-one days before my first birthday on 4APR1968. I can vaguely remember him being on television from that time. I have slightly better memories of Richard Nixon running for President. Those (along with even better ones of the first moon landing by the crew of the Apollo 11 mission a little over a year later) are my oldest memories.
If you all expect this to be the part where I get all predictable like most writer--positing maudlin "what-if's" about the great men in our history taken from us by the hate-filled and fearful, and then going on to drop names like JFK, John Lennon, and Jesus--before trying to make some vague philosophical point about how great a people we would be if we could only stop rolling around in our own shit--prepare for disappointment. We are born shit-rollers--violent and petty and spiteful--and because of this the dreamers in our midst will always do so at their own peril. It wouldn't (couldn't) work any other way.
It's what makes being a dreamer worthwhile.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Monday, January 14, 2013
This post was made under duress.
She Who Must Be Obeyed has commanded me to use my soapbox here to air one of her grievances. The issue that is keeping her awake at night is that she can't she find eggnog after Christmas Day in any store in our town, or any of the little ones nearby. I don't drink eggnog so I don't understand what the fuss is about. I sweat a little while she tries not to shake the gun she's holding against my head as I write this. If anyone knows why this is, or has a secret stash of eggnog saved up from before Jesus' womb Bastille Day, please be so kind as to share.
It's not that I'm afraid of dying, you understand. I just don't want to be permanently crippled or maimed because she couldn't get a clean kill with the DT's .
It's not that I'm afraid of dying, you understand. I just don't want to be permanently crippled or maimed because she couldn't get a clean kill with the DT's .
Saturday, January 12, 2013
This ones about gun control.
There has been a lot of talk in the media about gun control lately. The sad fact of the matter is that every time a tragedy strikes, someone will try to use if for political gain. I am usually reluctant to pull things from the headlines because I don't want to be a part of the typical media storms that significant events inspire. However, I will do so after enough people try to give me their misinformed or fear-inspired views.
A lot of people think that politicians talking about gun control means that they are trying to pass laws that will allow the government to send an armored SWAT team into their homes to take away the firearms they already own. This will not happen. What the politicians are trying to do mainly is look like they are actively addressing an important social issue. What they are really doing is being the corrupt, lazy, and inefficient bureaucrats that they are. Hotheaded activists on both sides of the issue will make things more muddy by spouting off tirades designed to antagonize their opposition. Ultimately, the best the politicians or activists will ever be able to manage is adding a few more ineffectual laws to an already ludicrously large pile of similar legislation.
The truth about gun violence is that every child murdered in a school, every family killed in a movie theater, every innocent person slaughtered in a public massacre by some homicidal jackass with a gun were all abiding by our laws. They didn't have guns on them because they were somewhere guns weren't allowed, or they had chosen not to own a gun. The criminal with the gun doing all the killing is the one breaking the law, and that jackass honestly couldn't give a damn how many gun laws they have broken when they are on a killing spree. No matter how much you or anyone else might not like it, guns are out there in the world--and no amount of legislation or wishful thinking will ever make them cease to exist.
This is the ultimate truth about all our gun laws: they cannot keep guns out of the hands of criminals who want to obtain them. The best thing more gun laws can do is create a larger selection of targets for criminals. Making magazines smaller just means the bad guys will carry more of them. And being shot with a .45 pistol round or a 5.56 rifle round really will not make any difference to the person with a hole in their head.
Here is another harsh fact about gun violence: your typical mass murderer, the one that walks into a school or mall or ambushes first responders, usually eats a bullet as soon as any resistance is offered. Or they give up. Either way, the killing spree comes to an abrupt halt.
This is the last hard truth about guns and violence I am going to give to you all: if those schoolteachers or everyone in those malls or movie theaters had been armed, if even just one of them been armed in each attack, the outcomes of them would have been wildly different. The body counts of these incidents would have been zero or in single digits. Because the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
A lot of people think that politicians talking about gun control means that they are trying to pass laws that will allow the government to send an armored SWAT team into their homes to take away the firearms they already own. This will not happen. What the politicians are trying to do mainly is look like they are actively addressing an important social issue. What they are really doing is being the corrupt, lazy, and inefficient bureaucrats that they are. Hotheaded activists on both sides of the issue will make things more muddy by spouting off tirades designed to antagonize their opposition. Ultimately, the best the politicians or activists will ever be able to manage is adding a few more ineffectual laws to an already ludicrously large pile of similar legislation.
The truth about gun violence is that every child murdered in a school, every family killed in a movie theater, every innocent person slaughtered in a public massacre by some homicidal jackass with a gun were all abiding by our laws. They didn't have guns on them because they were somewhere guns weren't allowed, or they had chosen not to own a gun. The criminal with the gun doing all the killing is the one breaking the law, and that jackass honestly couldn't give a damn how many gun laws they have broken when they are on a killing spree. No matter how much you or anyone else might not like it, guns are out there in the world--and no amount of legislation or wishful thinking will ever make them cease to exist.
This is the ultimate truth about all our gun laws: they cannot keep guns out of the hands of criminals who want to obtain them. The best thing more gun laws can do is create a larger selection of targets for criminals. Making magazines smaller just means the bad guys will carry more of them. And being shot with a .45 pistol round or a 5.56 rifle round really will not make any difference to the person with a hole in their head.
Here is another harsh fact about gun violence: your typical mass murderer, the one that walks into a school or mall or ambushes first responders, usually eats a bullet as soon as any resistance is offered. Or they give up. Either way, the killing spree comes to an abrupt halt.
This is the last hard truth about guns and violence I am going to give to you all: if those schoolteachers or everyone in those malls or movie theaters had been armed, if even just one of them been armed in each attack, the outcomes of them would have been wildly different. The body counts of these incidents would have been zero or in single digits. Because the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
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