Kids are quite often...our Inspiration

Miguel, at Gun Free Zone posted this video and the following sentiment:

I have faced many an idiot pointing guns at my face, got swiped by a strong current and almost drowned, jumped in accidents and assisted in rescue of adult and juvenile victims being attacked by big dogs and attended (without wanting) total dislocations of societal order where people were being less than kind to each other. And although I have felt “nervous” I had to do what was necessary and managed to be “manly.”

But there is no way I could work in a Children’s Hospital and not being an emotional wreck in need of deep therapy and chemicals by the end of the first day.

I could not agree more.

Courage and Character Personified......

Army Ranger Josh Hargis was unconscious, hooked to a breathing tube at a military hospital in Afghanistan after losing both his legs in battle last week.

But when the Purple Heart ceremony began at Hargis’ bedside, it turned out he was not unconscious, as doctors believed. Instead, he struggled with an attending doctor to raise his heavily bandaged hand to salute a commanding officer presenting him with the medal.

"I cannot impart on you the level of emotion that poured through the intensive care unit that day," the commander wrote to the Ranger's wife. "Grown men began to weep, and we were speechless at a gesture that speaks volumes about Josh's courage and character."

There were about 50 fellow Rangers, doctors and nurses in the hospital room during the ceremony. The commanding officer said the salute was the “most beautiful” any person in the room had ever seen.

Link

Quote of the Day

"Banning semi auto rifles with detachable magazines to prevent killings would be like banning Ferraris to reduce speeding. Sure, they go really fast but more speeders drive Honda Civics."

A comment in response to an SFGate editorial on Gov Jerry Brown vetoing a California "assault weapons" ban. An editorial that employed the typically stale and false narrative from the gun control cabal: "Gov. Jerry Brown took a disappointingly timid approach to gun control with his veto Friday of legislation that would have banned semiautomatic rifles with easy-to-replace magazines that spew dozens of rounds in seconds."

Veterans man the barricades in DC.....

...and relocate them to the front lines; in front of the White House.

I should have gone to DC today.

Gov Moonbeam almost sounds lucid.....

“I don’t believe that this bill’s blanket ban on semiautomatic rifles would reduce criminal activity or enhance public safety enough to warrant this infringement on gun owners’ rights.” - CA Gov Jerry Brown

But he banned lead ammunition....so there's that.

Blogging Lull

I'm obviously not a professional Blogger, but I try and keep my loyal readers entertained and informed as best I can. I too, rely on other Bloggers to circulate information relevant and interesting to those who think generally as I do........except for those who are diametrically opposed to my ideology....and ironically, I rely on those as well......to keep me grounded, and to better inform my own position. Unlike many [it seems] I appreciate the opportunity to reevaluate my assessments. It either cements or crafts my position, to always be aligned with the moral imperatives outlined in the Constitution.

All that being said, I must apologize for my downward trend in posting of late. My day job has me focused on terrorism within the Pacific Area of Responsibility [AOR]....and soon I will find myself tapped to lend a hand in the Counter-Terrorism shenanigans with the Africa AOR, in a deployed capacity.

I want to take this opportunity to link a few sites that I turn to for some interesting conversation and distraction [not an encompassing list, and I'll try to add some more].

Geeeez

Western Hero

The Truth About Guns

Shall Not Be Questioned

Sharp as a Marble

Gun Free Zone

New Jovian Thunderbolt

Of Arms & The Law

"The Central Planning Solution to Evil"

Sultan Knish writes from a perspective that, as a Libertarian, I don't always agree with.....but his writing skills and point of view on the gun control lobby are second to none. His entire piece is not only worth reading, it's worth framing on your wall. Please go read the entire piece. Selected excerpts below:

The gun issue is about solving individual evil through central planning in a shelter big enough for everyone. A Gun Free Zone where everyone is a target and tries to live under the illusion that they aren't. A society where everyone is drawing peace signs on colored notepaper while waiting under their desks for the bomb to fall.

That brand of control isn't authority, it's authority in panic mode believing that if it imposes total zero tolerance control then there will be no more shootings. And every time the dumb paradigm is blown to bits with another shotgun, then the rush is on to reinforce it with more total zero control tolerance.

Zero tolerance for the Second Amendment makes sense. If you ban all guns, except for those in the hands of the 708,000 police officers, some of the 1.5 million members of the armed forces, the  security guards at armored cars and banks, the bodyguards of celebrities who call for gun control,  and any of the other people who need a gun to do their job, then you're sure to stop all shootings.

But this isn't really about stopping shootings; it's about the belief that the problem isn't evil, but agency, that if we make sure that everyone who has guns is following government orders, then control will be asserted and the problem will stop.

It's the central planning solution to evil.

Gun control does not control guns, it gives the illusion of controlling people, and when it fails those in authority are able to say that they did everything that they could short of giving people the ability to defend themselves.

The question is the old elemental one about government control and individual agency. And tragedies like the one that just happened take us back to the equally old question of whether individual liberty is a better defense against human evil than the entrenched organizations of government.

Do we want a society run by kings and princes who commit atrocities according to a plan for a better society, or by peasants with machine guns? The kings can promise us a world without evil, but the peasant with a machine gun promises us that we can protect ourselves from evil when it comes calling.

It isn't really guns that the gun controllers are afraid of; it's a country where individual agency is still superior to organized control, where the trains don't run on time and orders don't mean anything. It's afraid of individual power.

One Picture = A Thousand Words

h/t Bob Owens

'Nuff said.........

Waving the Bloody Shirt early......and in error.

Of course, I'll be waiting with baited breath for an aplogy and correction........

Never forget, we are not 'given' a right to own firearms.....

“We look to this because it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it “shall not be infringed.” As we said in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 553 (1876), “[t]his is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.”

DC v. Heller

Yes! I just might live long enough to see this.

Scientists at MIT and Harvard have reportedly found a way to bind photons together to make something that behaves “almost exactly like” the lightsaber from Star Wars, according to The Guardian.

Harvard physics professor Mikhail Lukin says: “It’s not an in-apt analogy to compare this to lightsabers. When these photons interact with each other, they’re pushing against and deflect each other. The physics of what’s happening in these molecules is similar to what we see in the movies.”

There’s no word on whether scientists have tried to use the technology to battle it out in the labs, but the downright-boring scientific language suggests that we’re still a few years off.

Link

Zero Tolerance = Zero Common Sense

Or something even more diabolical?

A student at a high school in Anaheim Hills said administrators ordered her to change out of a T-shirt that promoted the National Rifle Association.

Sophomore Haley Bullwinkle said when she wore her NRA shirt to Canyon High School last month, she landed in the principal’s office for violating the school’s dress code that forbids offensive, violent or divisive clothing.

“They were treating me like I was a criminal,” she said. “I was not allowed to wear that at school because it promoted gun violence.”

The shirt, which was a gift from Bullwinkle’s father when he became a card-carrying member of the NRA, features a buck, an American flag and a hunter’s silhouette. It also has the words “National Rifle Association of America: Protecting America’s Traditions Since 1871” written in the center.

Bullwinkle’s father said he emailed the school’s principal to find out why his daughter had to change her shirt.

Principal Kimberly Fricker responded in an email, which said, in part, “The shirt had a gun on it, which is not allowed by school police. It’s protocol to have students change when they’re in violation of the dress code.”

Link