GUN CONTROL vs VD

 

If Archie were alive today he would wear a MAGA hat.  

the Ol'Buzzard

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

 

 

 

Bipartisan gun bill – bullshit.   This is not a win.  It is an appeasement.

 

If military assault semi-automatic weapons and extended clips were not legal there would be no mass shootings. 

 

Other countries have citizens with mental health problems, but they don’t have mass gun casualties like the United States; because their citizens don’t have access to military weapons designed to inflict mass casualties in a combat situation. 

 

Children massacred in schools, people killed at concerts, people mowed down at parades…   This is not the result of mental health issues, not about red flag laws, not about background checks.   It is because of the availability of military assault weapons  

 

 

 designed to deliberately and violently kill a large number of people - including children.

the Ol'Buzzard

 

 

THE SECOND AMENDMENT AND THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS BULLSHIT

After the Revolutionary War the U.S was broke.  The government could not afford to pay, equip and maintain a large standing army.  

On December 15, 1791 the Congress addressed this issue by enacting the Second Amendment to the Constitution to federally mandate state militias.  

Five months later they passed the Military Act of 1792 conscripting all “free able-bodied white male citizen” between the ages of 18 and 45 into a local militia company.  

Where available men were to be issue a musket, bayonet and belt, two spare flints, a cartridge box with 24 bullets and a knapsack.   Men owning rifles were required to provide their own rifle, a powder horn, ¼ pound of gunpowder, 20 rifle balls, a shooting pouch and a knapsack. 

Congress declared that in times of imminent invasion or insurrection the President had authority to take command of the State militias.   This authority was used to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794.

The purpose of the Second Amendment was to establish militias and defined the right of citizens to own guns as necessary to insure the militias were properly armed.

This Second Amendment right to bear arms has been totally taken out of context. 

Remember when Sarah Palin said that Paul Revere's ride was to inform the British that Americans would not give up their guns?   People believe what they want to believe.

The Second U.S. Congress did not enact the Second Amendment to insure some moronic would be able to take an assault weapon into McDonald’s to buy a hamburger. 

ANOTHER BLOODY DAY IN THE LAND OF THE FREE AND THE HOME OF THE GUNS.

  

Seventeen high school children killed in Florida; or should we say, just another school shooting.

Canadian children and U.S. children are homogenous.  Some small percentage of Canadian children suffer ridicule, depression and bullying just like American kids.   Yet, Canadian children do not attend school every day in fear of carnage. 

The reason is obvious: Canada has strict gun control laws.

Any politician that talks publicly about background checks and mental health, to distract from the elephant in the room - guns, is complicit in the death of all the children that have died of gun violence over the past decade.    They may as well have stood at the scenes of the shootings and pass the clips to the shooters.

the Ol’Buzzard

ONE MORE TAKE ON SENSIBLE GUN CONTROL

The argument that the Second Amendment was to allow citizens to have guns to protect themselves against their own government is blatantly false.  

I know this bothers some gun supporters that have heard this from the NRA and used this as their argument for no gun laws.  But, in 1791 when the Amendment was past, America did not have a standing army and the intent was to guarantee citizens could own guns so in time of crisis a militia could be quickly raised – not armed for an insurrection against the government.

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

In 1792 the Congress went one step further, passing an act requiring all male citizens to arm themselves in order to be able to quickly raise a militia:

Each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia… every citizen so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or flrelock, and sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball: or with a good rifle, knapsack ,shot-pouch and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder; and shall appear, so armed, accoutered and provided, when called out to exercise, or into service, except, that when called out on company days to exercise only, he may appear without a knapsack.

Today we have a standing army and the requirement for all citizens to arm is not necessary – neither is the argument that we must arm ourselves so we can overthrow our own government.  

We fought a Civil War against the idea of anarchy – the point should be well established. 

The need to line up at Burger King with assault rifles and pistols defies common sense and places the general public in danger.

The Ol’Buzzard

ASSHOLE

If you walk into a movie theater or playhouse and don’t turn your phone off you are an asshole.

If you are seated at a restaurant and carry on a conversation on your cell phone you are an asshole.

If you are sitting at a restaurant with one or more friends and take out your phone to check your messages you are an asshole.

If you are driving and talking on your phone you are an asshole (and if you are driving and texting you are a fucktard asshole.)

If you are driving less than two car lengths from the car in front of you, you are an asshole.

If you are at a restaurant and talking and laughing excessively loud you are an asshole.

If you leave your dog unattended in a car you are an asshole.

If your dog craps anywhere other than your own yard you are an asshole.

If your dog or cat is allowed to run free outside of your yard you are an asshole.

If you take your dog into a store or a restaurant you are an asshole.

If you carry a firearm into any a restaurant, store or any public venue you are an asshole.

If you feel that everyone else should defer to your religious beliefs you are an asshole.

This is just the short list: feel free to add to it at will. 

 

the Ol’Buzzard

SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS

The recent Yellowdog Granny post contained a clip about the ‘Right to bear arms.”   We constantly hear the idiot right parrot the Second Amendment without actually understanding the context. 

Ted Nugent
Got deferment from military because he craps the bed.

ARTICLE II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. 

 

Adopted in 1791, the Second Amendment was written for that time and place.   In 1791 the United States did not have a large standing army nor military reserve units as exist today.  In case of military necessity men could be conscripted for a militia and would be expected to furnish their own weaponry.   Thus, in lieu of a standing army it was important that citizens be allowed to own firearms – a right not granted the average citizen of Britain.  

The intention was never to arm citizens for the eventual overthrow of the Constitutional government, but to guarantee the ability to quickly raise an armed militia. 

Today we have a standing Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Coast Guard and Military Reserve Units and a military industrial complex that could easily arm the entire world.      There is no longer a need for the Second Amendment: the need for citizens to own military style weapons does not exist. 

The Second Amendment should be revised to allow citizens to own firearms for home protection and sporting purposes – but restrict all large capacity automatic and semi-automatic military style weaponry. 

It is only common sense: but there is the rub.

the Ol’Buzzard 

SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF AURORA, COLORADO MASSACRE

In the wake of the Aurora, Colorado shooting news pundits and blogs are postulating causes, conditions and incidents that may have led to this senseless mass killing. 

The normal lunatic fringe is adding their conspiracy theories to the mix; but few, except their ilk, are paying attention to them.

There is no one reason that we can attribute to this particular attack or other similar unprovoked attacks on the general population.   The causes are unfathomable but many conditions exist that act as a catalyst. 

There have always been people that live on the edge of sanity, and the propensity for violence has always been there.   Conditions that can trigger these antisocial meltdown include depression, paranoia, extreme stress, sexual deviance, religious mania, schizophrenia, low IQ, a need for acceptance (cults,) – and the list continues. 

I have lived for seventy-plus years (and been conscious for most of that time.)   Looking back, I perceive a societal trend that seems to lend itself to the mix.

These kinds of atrocities were not common fifty years ago.  Of course, the U.S. population has almost doubled since 1960; so the numbers of people capable of these actions have increased proportionally.

The main trend I see is that over the last fifty years we have moved into an era of social isolation.   People with problems use to interact with society in order to function in their daily life.  To communicate you had to speak to friends, family and other people.   You had to constantly interact on a personal basis. 

During the fifties and early sixties there were ‘action’ movies and TV shows, but the violence was regulated.   Interaction with people on a daily basis kept you grounded so that fantasy worlds were recognized as fantasy. 

Today’s population is inundated with images of extreme graphic violence and as a results we have become somewhat deadened in our emotion toward actual killings.  Many young men after work or school immediately plug into video games.  Research has shown that boys by the age of 21 have spent 10,000 hours playing video games.  All of these games are violent, and participants vicariously kill or be-killed.  These games roll play carnage; and for some obsessed young people the line between reality and fantasy becomes blurred.

During the fifties and sixties there were a few mass killings (suicides,) but they were the results of religious cults.   Individual acts of mass violence were rare; and when these occurred the general population felt a personal revulsion.

We have been desensitized.   It seems that among the general population, the killings at Columbine High School and in the theater at Aurora have taken on the quality of a reality show.   We have become a voyeur nation. The feeling of personal loss and compassion would have been much more genuine fifty years ago. 

We live in a world of social media resulting in social isolation.   Young people’s brains are becoming digitally rewired. Where we once spent hours interacting directly with people we now spend hours on the computer.  Talking to people, even on a cell phone, is rare – now we text or tweet.    I have seen young people at the local college sitting at a table together texting rather than talking.  

There are catalysts to these senseless killings.   The availability of guns, fantasy role-play, violence in media, the opportunity for instant fame and recognition via the twenty-four hour news networks all have their place in the execution of acts of carnage by unhinged individuals; but they are not in themselves the cause. 

In closing, it is my belief that society is following technology, and as a result the individual is becoming more isolated.  Because of this social isolation society has moved to a point of apathy toward others.  We are seeing in these killings a Darwinian adjustment of society and a rewiring of the individual’s brain to function in the new techno-environment.   The result of this new environment is an acceptance that this type of violence is the norm, and though regrettable will continue. 

Or as Yellow Dog Granny might say: we’re all fucked.

the Ol’Buzzard

  

    

WE MUST PROTECT OUR SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHTS

When a young man carried an assault rifle, a shotgun and two pistols into a movie theater he was exercising his Second Amendment Rights.

When a man with two pistols with extended ammo clips attended Gabby Giffords’ political meeting he was exercising his Second Amendment Rights.

When a man patrolled his neighborhood while carrying a handgun; and decided it is necessary to accost a young black teen who is talking on a cell phone and drinking a soda – he was exercising his Second Amendment Rights.

And who knows when it will be necessary to overthrow our government that is becoming too inclusive of minorities, or to repel alien attacks?    So we need to protect our Second Amendment Rights.

Really?

the Ol'Buzzard