…that lasted a decade: 1994-2004, and when it lapsed, the BATFE & FBI acknowledged it had no impact on crime. Yet now, after another shooting in which the local police and FBI dropped the ball multiple times investigating a man who posted on social media that he was going to shoot a school, the .gov and some of the general public are calling to reinstate a ban that was acknowledged to be irrelevant.
In London, after the Sep. 2016 Muslim terrorist attack, the mayor said Muslim terrorists attacks are “….part & parcel of living in a city…” and rather than going after Muslim terrorists, the deaths of infidels/British subjects, are tolerated. But if we say: “in the USA, part & parcel of a free society is that free people can make bad decisions that can kill other citizens,” is that an acceptable explanation? Hell no. It is acceptable with a Muslim terrorist in a truck, but regarding a certain type (AR15) or functioning (semi-auto) gun which is used in a minuscule number of deaths, it apparently isn’t an acceptable position… even if that position is basically what our country was based on: freedom. Today, not so much, although not necessarily in a completely negative way, just a balanced one.
“Total and unfettered freedom requires isolation. Why do I say that? Because being in a group is a compromise. You begin compromising your total freedom the moment you join a group, a village, a city, a nation. Don’t believe me? …go to a public park totally naked and begin doing Taichi…
You would not want to run into … one of those people because they interfere with you and your family’s enjoyment of the park … See….compromises.
So now we get into the balance of rights discussion, and why America is not, has not been, and never will be united. America, like the EU, is a loose amalgamation of 50 different city-states with their own laws, social mores, and ideas about living. What I do in my daily life in Norther AZ would have me put in prison in Illinois.”
Freedom is a term that gets tossed out there a lot in arguments and justifications, usually in regards to Speech, by one side, and Guns by the other.
I’m a big fan of freedom, on both sides, especially when one of those sides begins to be intruded upon. I like to think of it as the American in me that when you tell me I cant say or do something, I want to do it all that much more. I doubt I’m the only one like that as well.
Now when a nutjob who should have been arrested and stripped of firearms because of threats of violence against his former school and classmates, we hear that we must ban all “assault weapons”. Lets go gun happy for a minute. One of several MILLION privately owned ARs is used in a murder that never would have happened if the local police & FBI had done their job, and the response to this FBI/police screw-up is that all guns should be destroyed. Or, perhaps, all gun owners be made into felons by new Draconian laws. Maybe some of it has to do with the recent #metoo movement and because so many gun owners are men, or worse, white men, it’s ok to make them felons with the stroke of a pen, without them yet committing a crime. Due Process anyone? The stroke of a pen made no difference in crime from 1994-2004, the BATF & FBI said it openly and it was even published in the MSM news papers, but let’s try again? An ineffective law is being called for because somehow it will be different this time? Most likely they figure if they ban MORE stuff, it will work this time. Huh.
Lawbreakers by definition break laws. Words don’t stop them. Those intent on violence will only be stopped by violence directed at them. Any cop worth his badge will tell you as much. Cowards preying on people who cannot fight back, words & laws will never stop them. It’s magical thinking to believe words or laws stop violence, just like the “COEXIST” bumper stickers don’t stop Muslim terrorists.
The issue is one of civics and culture. We have lost our way as the culture that led the way. We were an example as a country and as a society of what others should look up to, even if they didn’t want to emulate us, they respected us. We don’t respect ourselves anymore. We were made by hard work and family values. Those two concepts are all but destroyed in our modern climate.
Mental health is a subset of this loss in family values and I could go on and on about social workers and the sickening cycle it has become to create more problems than solutions. In fact, I will. In short, the mentally ill are a part of our society and today patients (now Politically Corrected as Clients) are released to the streets. The mental health providers claim that its better for the clients to not be “locked away” in a treatment facility. The homelessness that it caused for the crazy patients spurs the rise of social workers and policies of “community release” of individuals who previously would have been in mental institutions that are now no longer continuously supervised by health care workers. Medications begets street drugs begets crime begets arrests and releases back to the streets, all because the integrity of hard work and family values has been lost.
Is this an extreme example? Only slightly, a lot less extreme and a lot more common than most want to realize. But to tone it down, lets look at the youth of today’s families and their unhealthy coping with punishment and adverse consequences that seem to make them flip out because they don’t get what they want. I’ve seen it time and time again in public schools: student is punished for breaking an established rule, then proceeds to flip out about being caught, parents call up and don’t really ever deal with the student, their child, being in trouble, and somebody puts another quarter in the merry-go-round.
More laws don’t do shit to fix a problem. Emotional responses don’t do shit to fix a problem. Our culture is the problem. Bad parents are the problem. Look at Chicago, DC… Mexico… sigh, it doesn’t matter. You cant show facts and figures and history and rules to someone who is ruled by their emotions because they have been allowed to do so for so long. The simple fact is that people that want to do harm to others can and will find a way. Objects don’t affect human behavior. Because you own a kitchen knife doesn’t make you a domestic spouse abuser or violent criminal any more than a baseball bat, ax, or an AR15 does. Evil exists, regardless of how it is physically manifested.
IDWritingWorks 