Writing Yourself Back Into Sanity

Gun control. Hang on, hang on! Give this just a moment. Let's use that as an example, as well as address it, just for the moment.

I'm a writer. I write myself into impossible situations in fiction, or my characters anyway. Then I write my (their) way out of it so at first, my reader thinks my character is lost. Then, not lost, but in a fun way. Hopefully.

When I build into those situations both as the author and character God, I try to write cleverly. Whenever I can't, when I'm just as lost as my character (happens all the time, that's the fun of it!), I first have to realize, I'm lost. I consider all the rational, logical, even illogical ways out of the situation or scene, or picadillo. Once I find I have no solution, it's like there's a click, and I realize where I am. Stuck.

That's when it occurs to me to look 180 degrees about in order to see where to go. It's jarring at times. It's counter-intuitive. It's at times humorous. Or feels insane. But then, I ruminate about how to make whatever it is that rises to the surface, to work. Not forcing it, but jostling it about in my mind as mental attachments are formed and then, solutions begin to spark into life. Exercise at times aides that along. Also, removing oneself from the problem. Rest, entertainment (but be careful, that can also be a trap).

So often, that realignment to 180 degrees, becomes the actual and best solution. At times, the only solution.

I first discovered that in my life. With heavy contrast comes obvious elements previously unseen in the situation. Counter-intuitive, like I said. It's not always intuitive. So you have to break out of that mindset you are locked into.

That's what I've meant about conservatives and Republicans of late. They seem to have difficulty with situations that require counter-intuitive solutions or, ways of viewing things. They can'/t see the forest for the trees you might say, so much of the time.

I've shared this 180-degree concept with people over my lifetime and they've been surprised at first how often it works to their benefit in giving them insights or perhaps, outsights. It's a technique for thinking out of the box. Or realizing there was never a box to begin with. Now that's thinking outside of the box.

When I look at guns, the gun situation in this country, gun control, mass shootings, where we are at now...the obvious solution, for a child...is arming everything and everyone. It is an ill-informed, juvenile consideration,.

It is where the, "Only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun" solution comes from. But it sounds like the solution of a five-year-old. Or, the NRA, or the Republican party. Of conservative gun owners and those who cannot see clearly any other solution. Because it's not obvious. It's lost among all the other chatter in the situation.

It's low contrast, obscured because of a reverent almost religious attachment to the US Constitution. Which is not a God. And once you consider the destructive dynamics of a God consideration, outside the blanket goodness attributed by theists to deity worship, one begins to see what is truly there.

Welcome to my world!

Remember a long time ago? Further up the page here when I mentioned getting out of tough creative solutions to fictional problems? Yes, those were the good old times, weren't they? The good old days of a moment ago. Before all this insanity in the world was boxing us about the head and brain, mind and morality. Yet, we really must continue on....

So, to summarize, IF you turn about 180 degrees you can frequently clearly see potential solutions.

And in this case, that is...the reform of gun control laws. Or going further in turning up the contrast levels, a rethinking of the 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution. I know, I know, all that and the rest.

If you cannot see that, well...that's how the NRA and the extreme conservative Republican party and how so disingenuously they ard the travesty in the oval office, Donald Trump, have all continued to trick and con us all. To subvert reality to their own ends and not ours.

The solution isn't usually all that hard. It's just hard for some to see. But once it's been seen, you really cannot unsee it. That's the problem with atheists, you see. I went through that myself. I was raised strict Catholic. Old school, old country, old Slovak Catholic. Then I came to understand I was only half that. The other half was Irish by way of my father's family. I realized I was more Irish Catholic. That broke with the old strict traditional Slovak Catholic I had been all my young life. This was about the beginning of high school for me.

There were some other issues that helped me along, which aren't relevant here today about this. But you get the picture. I started looking around. In reading science fiction all my life, brilliants thinkers had given me a methodology to see when you are blinded by your reality and not THE reality. After a decade or so of theistic and philosophical, then college and studies in anthropology, sociology, and a degree in psychology, it all became clear.

Then I had to shake off the remaining vestiges of a lifetime of fear invoked by religious dogma and finally one day, after being a devoted theist, an adamant agnostic, a staunch atheist, I found the reality that wasn't in that box built by humanity and found one that was always there in form, a part, and parcel of the universe itself.

That is when one has to act.

That has been nearly impossible.

But times are now a changing yet again and those who are conning us are on the way out. Demographics are changing starting to fit a reality we have lived for some time now. We just have to open our eyes, our minds, and take in what is there and where we are headed. We can get in front of that train and get run over, or we can help it along and gain the love and respect of all those feeling abused because we refuse to see them or...to respect them. In ways they know, they deserve.

We will all one day, our descendants will one day, all look back at now and marvel at how really damned stupid we were and for so very long.

Really, it just takes courage.

And being honest about what is and what isn't, If only or even for a moment as we study it, we can see what is there without us in the picture. Then put us back in and see how we truly fit into what is and what has been. And what we haven't been able to see. For whatever reason.

Whatever it takes. And if that is looking about oneself 180 degrees, or counter-intuitively, so be it. Or if you have another way, one THAT WORKS, great! Use it. But do...use it!

Because we have to stop not seeing what is there and start seeing what others can clearly see while we refuse or simply cannot see it. Or see it all.

Especially when the solutions were there, staring us all right in the face.

Beware, we're beginning to see the battle we're actually fighting.

I've posted this a elsewhere.
Why?

Because it's not just about this.I realized I needed to say something. There is more to this article than I at first realized, once I started considering it more deeply. Is what's going on because of NRA money to Congress so they do their bidding? As we're seeing? Or are we not fully understanding what is going on?

Most likely, the latter. Otherwise, things would have changed by now. We're obviously fighting a different battle than we thought we were.

We need to be very careful from here on.
We are being sold a bill of goods for something that is nothing if not standard operating procedure.
But also by design or coincidence, simply basic old Soviet practices.
Espionage gone mainstream.
Marketing on steroids, using what they've learned from professionals.
Wall Street working to drain us for their benefit using enhanced business and marketing practices.

Words at this time rise to the surface like bacteria on cream. Like subliminal. Like Social Engineering. Like PsyOps (psychological operations).

WAKE UP! Pay attention. Be aware. Educate yourself in areas most vital that you know and understand. So you can see it is actually happening.

This isn't a sci fi story. It's not an action adventure, a thriller movie, a horror film. Donald Trump as president thinks it is. More importantly he wants YOU to think it is. Or at least, to reacts as if it were.

"Are You Entertained?"!

This is for real. All of it. It's not huge evil monsters. It's not just an ultra right wing conspiracy. It's not just Putin abusing Western Democracies, in protecting his vast wealth and enabling his remaining outside of Russian gulags.

It's just people, doing a job, with a boss, with an agenda, with a goal, maybe even with what they believe to be higher purposes....but where any means justifies their ends. We are the target of a lot of people holding political, social and psychological "darts" aimed at our weakest emotional and intellectual and financial spots for their most benefits.

It's the usual misdirect by magicians and conmen.
Con People.
ConGressional Confidence People.
And their cohorts outside of Congress.
Their minions in and all about Congress.
We need to look at the actual problems, not the ethereal facades painted over to look like the problem.

Focus. Learn. Push back in ways that actually move the needle for us. It can happen. We can do this. Why haven't we yet been able to affect positive change in OUR direction?

Because we just didn't know the game we were all playing, or clearly understand just who the opponents were whom we hadn't recognized, or so very often, even seen. So much has been obfuscated, obstructed from view, redirected as our attention has repeatedly been sent off into directions having no bearings on our realities.

But we see you now....

3+ Points Against the Anti-Gun Control Argument

Stupid.

That's what all this discussion, arguing, disagreement, lies, twisted logic and outright logical fallacies are about gun control. Stupid.

Speaking of Stupid with a capital "S", we have to mention the NRA and either their tactics (brilliant as they work, or stupid as they are in the worst interests of the citizenry). Here's an interesting article on how blatant they are about their tactics.

Just circle back around later and check these links out; I've supplied you with a few to gather further info from. Just be sure to also read this, FROM a self-professed "gun nut":
Why Gun Nuts Lie – I Know From Experience.

Let's set the tone with this:

Now real quick on the NRA being stupid...regarding their comment that, "the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy"...there's so many ways that concept immediately goes wrong:

First sign you have a problem? For most people? If you're always carrying a gun.

Not to mention firing into usually the dark in a theater or a club missing and hitting an innocent, or hitting the bad guy even killing him and your bullet goes on to kill an innocent, or ricochet and wounding someone. Shooting another "good" guy with a gun who was trying to stop the bad guy with gun. The list goes on.

The honest truth about guns in this country is that this need just doesn't happen often enough for the mentality of all people claiming to need guns for protection. Besides, it abdicates the responsibility from law makers, police and gun manufacturers for them to do something more useful and widespread. It's a child's solution to a problem, really.

The problem as I see it is that we think that a right abdicates control. In having the right to guns, even if that were true from what the 2nd Amendment indicates, we have abdicated the culture and then we just throw people into ownership. These people have not grown up with guns as those did in the past, where a gun was life. It's not LIFE now.

We have supermarkets for food, we have police and fire departments for life saving. And yet we pretend life is still like it is back in the 1700s. It's not. Yes it takes time for police to arrive and they are frequently only good for clean up and reporting. But this is nothing like the 1700s with no phones, no established governmental protections in police, medical and military if and when needed. The mere existence of those things changes the situation greatly.

You have to be raised into a gun culture to have one. Not suddenly join it as an adult and expect things will be just fine overall. For the most part things are going well, but they certainly are not perfect by any means or we wouldn't be seeing mass shootings using weapons designed to kill masses of people.

So if you suddenly want to bring a gun into your life, you need proper indoctrination first!
There's a lot to get through here so I'll go through my three points, to give you an idea of what I'm talking about, and then skip through some things and offer other places you can get more and even better information about this sad topic that mostly faux conservatives and the NRA have abused America over.

Even Pres. Reagan, Pres. Bush Sr. and many others going back into the 80s thought what the NRA started to do and has done, were disgusting abuses of rational arguments about guns. We have a police and military now unlike at the founding of this country and what this nonsense does is disrespect all of them in their efforts.

First of all we're ALL into gun control. Or at least studying it for some answers. As the AMA has just pointed out, it's time to lift the ridiculous ban on the CDC studying gun violence..

To say otherwise is, well...stupid. No one wants (some do) excessive gun control. It's still America (mostly and at least until the next election in November). I just don't think we need too loose of gun control. People are dying, something needs to be done, pretty much, end of story. Only a really truly foolish individual would say we should do anything at all in any way possible about the current rash of mass shootings these past years.

People who correlate "Freedom" and guns. Stupid. I'm sick of Constitutional originalists. The Constitution is a "living document". How do you prove that? Easy. If it wasn't it would never have been amended, ever. We have the Supreme Court whose job it is to interpret the meaning of the Constitution in the climate of the times so that it IS the functional document that it has been.

Besides, freedom actually has nothing whatsoever to do with guns or gun control.

It's just that they've been linked together for so long, only the uneducated, the alleged "conservative", the faux "patriot", the greedy and the simply firearms addicted think that it does. They think it has everything to do with it in fact. The times and climate on this topic is finally changing as the Supreme Court rules states have the right to ban assault weapons.

About the 2nd Amendment:

"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."

Nothing whatsoever is stated about purchasing arms in that. Or what type of. People focus too much on the wrong elements, giving emphasis to the wrong things in that Amendment.

There's three points in that statement that we need to pay particular attention to, and which get very little understanding and correct attention to. 

1. A "well regulated" militia (or I'd allow, citizenry) is important. 

2. And so, a "Militia" is important. 

3. Finally to "keep and bear arms" is important. 

But not in the ways you might think. 

To understand the problems we face with this issue one has to examine what the Founding Fathers thought and said back then, and then consider the evolution of society at large, of this nation, of technology and of the world in general.

Take some of the Founding Fathers' comments. 

"A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined..."

- George Washington, First Annual Address, to both House of Congress, January 8, 1790

"Disciplined". That's important. It eliminates issues like what we're seeing today. A well disciplined soldier, or people for that matter, do not perform mass shootings such as we see today. Nor do they kill innocents. 

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."

- Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Constitution, Draft 1, 1776

That is to say like, what? That we shall not be kept from any form of weapon whatsoever? Or that we shall not be kept entirely from any weapon to wit, in that we are not allowed to have any kind of arm at all? That is a big disparity. 

"I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery."

- Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787

First consider he is thinking not necessarily as being indentured by the state, but in relation to outright slavery as he was after all, a slave owner, as were many who were considered "normal" and "decent" people back then. 

"What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms."

- Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, December 20, 1787

This is a good one. Back then taking arms to resist was not just to battle another force, but to show up in force, armed, to make a point, to be taken seriously. And also if necessary, in the consideration not of our own government being the enemy, but of the British empire.

Our government was set up as the "Great Experiment" so that we would not have to live that way, fearful of our own government since it would be and is a government of the people, for the people and by the people. 

The Founding Fathers would be horrified to hear conservatives now a days talking about needing to be armed to protect themselves from their own government. From This Government. 

Back in those days, armed resistance was not an unnatural thing. Today things have changed dramatically. WE do not need to show up armed to make a point because we have our government. We also have a standing army, in multiple branches, which is the most powerful in the world, as well as a well regulated National Guard and police force of various levels (local, state and national). 

What is so sad about conservatives who believe we need to remained armed is that they obviously do not respect our government, themselves or other Americans as they should. With all its warts and embellishments, difficulties, dissatisfactions and difficulties, this is still our, OUR... government. 

So what about those words, those phrases then?

"Well regulated" is important. "Militia" is important. "Keep and bear arms" is important. 

Well regulated does not mean we should be allowed as citizens to walk into any gun store and buy any weapon. It doesn't mean any citizen either, UNLESS they are "well regulated". Many take that to mean a militia, or an army.

Our Founding Fathers were leary of a standing national army. Because of Britain. However as we grew up as a nation we grew to need and understand the importance of having a standing army and thus the United States Military came into being. 

From Wikipedia:

"After the war, though, the Continental Army was quickly given land certificates and disbanded in a reflection of the republican distrust of standing armies. State militias became the new nation's sole ground army, with the exception of a regiment to guard the Western Frontier and one battery of artillery guarding West Point's arsenal. However, because of continuing conflict with Native Americans, it was soon realized that it was necessary to field a trained standing army. The Regular Army was at first very small, and after General St. Clair's defeat at the Battle of the Wabash, the Regular Army was reorganized as the Legion of the United States, which was established in 1791 and renamed the "United States Army" in 1796."

Well regulated also means that if you want a gun, you have to be, well, regulated. That means laws and certifications. Training. It also means responsibility for you bearing, storing, maintaining your arms. But in today's conservatively nauseating climate, people wish to believe it means we are all granted a right to have any mechanized weaponry. Nonsense.

We could point out here that when some today say to bear arms includes assault weapons, or if you prefer rapid fire, high capacity mechanized firearms, it can also simply mean, swords and knives, clubs and well who knows what medieval weaponry besides modern firearms. 

I would argue what it should mean is if you want a revolver or bolt action hunting rifle, you need to be trained, learn respect of a killing machine that you will have and store in your home correctly and no you do NOT get carte blanche, a blanket bill to just have a gun with no training, no reasonable storage considerations and so on. Much as it is now.

If you wish to have a semi automatic handgun or rifle, then you need more formal training and you need to own appropriate storage for those weapons and protection of those weapons when you are using them OR storing them.

NO one should ever be able to take your weapon, whether you are carrying it loaded, unloaded, or in storing it when you are either at home or away. 

A well regulated citizenry bearing arms would be a safe and sane citizenry. 

Which brings up the next term, Militia. 

What is a militia and what did the Founding Fathers intend by that term? I'm really not going to get into that morass of nonsense as it's bandied about and argued over today. Just let it be said that they were referring to the citizenry back then who were the army, who were not a standing army, but who could be called upon at a moment's notice to serve the country.

Who nowadays is ready to drop their lives and go into the Army if need be? We're not talking eighteen year olds either. Anyone of any age, granted focused more so on the young and strong enough to fight and die for their country. And sometimes foolish enough to follow orders. Which is why they don't seen old men into harm's way when they can avoid it, aside from the obvious physical issues age brings along with it.

The point there is since we've already given up on that concept as dysfunctional and problematic, raising an army from the citizenry only when needed, something we did at the birth of our nation out of necessity, then we need to understand the term militia for today to mean something entirely different, and if not unnecessary.

It doesn't mean the same anymore, we don't have the same anymore, and frankly, it points out this part of the 2nd Amendment needs to be rewritten to fit the new situation. For one thing the professionalism and complexity of militaries have gotten to a point that far outpaces that of an instant citizen army. Possibly you could do what Israel does and yet, we do not. Nor do we have an enemy on our borders such as they do. And no, we do not. We have oceans, Mexico and Canada. 

Finally the third point, to "keep and bear arms". 

Nowhere in this does it say people can buy guns. Or what type of guns. It cannot mean assault rifles because they simply didn't exist in 1791. I think the Founding Fathers would be stunned and horrified to learn of the compact and massive firepower we have today and that we allow citizens to own military grade weaponry. Certainly military grade by 1791 standards.

Consider this article on the phrase:

"Among the numerous amicus briefs submitted is the so-called "Linguists' Brief", written by Dennis E. Baron, Richard W. Bailey, and Jeffrey P. Kaplan. This brief argues that the Second Amendment protects only a public right on two grounds: the afore-mentioned interpretation of the leading clause, and the argument that the expression "bear arms" refers only to the organized military use of arms, not to individual use. They claim that the term "bear arms" is "an idiomatic expression that means 'to serve as a soldier, do military service'".

Taking the phrase as it was in general use back then, it means something different than we understand it to mean today.

And this is a final nail in the coffin on conservatives arguing for guns for all as a right:

"To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss. It would form an annual deduction from the productive labor of the country, to an amount which, calculating upon the present numbers of the people, would not fall far short of the whole expense of the civil establishments of all the States. To attempt a thing which would abridge the mass of labor and industry to so considerable an extent, would be unwise: and the experiment, if made, could not succeed, because it would not long be endured. Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year."

It goes on further to state that contrary to what some ignorant conservatives think today, they were not fearful of our government against the people but of a militia against the government as well as the people. Which I would argue almost (but not quite) indicates for the nation today to disarm people out of protection rather than have them fully armed.

"This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist."

"Thus differently from the adversaries of the proposed Constitution should I reason on the same subject, deducing arguments of safety from the very sources which they represent as fraught with danger and perdition."

See?

And finally this passage as if they were viewing conservatives today in their admonitions of ridiculous contentions over and over again against our nation:

"Are suppositions of this sort the sober admonitions of discerning patriots to a discerning people? Or are they the inflammatory ravings of incendiaries or distempered enthusiasts? If we were even to suppose the national rulers actuated by the most ungovernable ambition, it is impossible to believe that they would employ such preposterous means to accomplish their designs."

You could also argue that the way the phrase was written refers to the government giving us weapons that we could keep and carry. Then that gets into when we would be given them, and when we could be carrying them. Considering back then many had their own guns they used in battle under the banner of the US flag and constitution, we can't expect the government to give us arms to keep and carry and if they did, as they do when you are in a real army, you actually need to use them to go to war. 

When you are off duty in the military you give up your arms, which are then stored in an armory, guarded by armed guards. So then you can't go get drunk and kill your sergeant or friends if you get mad at them during your off periods where you're not just killing the enemy. 

It begs the question, if they refer to citizens keeping and bearing arms at home whenever they like or, only during war, but in that our own government could remove all arms from citizens. And yet this says nothing about which arms are being referred to or how many per person.

Technically the 2nd Amendment could just be saying everyone can have a .22 long rifle or a shotgun to kill rabbits with for food and to use for protection against property or home invaders. Which is to say, burglars and criminals. But that doesn't mean using an assault rifle for home protection which any professional would point out is ludicrous. 

The degree to which people today have abused the meaning of the 2nd Amendment is pathetic. When we have a climate as we do today that includes mass shooters, snipers of public citizens, political assassinations, and terrorist attacks by foreign as well as nationalists, the 2nd Amendment needs again to be reconsidered and handled in such a way appropriate so as to fit our needs today, our current technologies and situations. 

We have to consider not only what the 2nd Amendment means, what it's original intent was, but also what we need it to mean today, how we consider what we have already agreed to do in many ways over many years and, how we have accepted the current meaning of the Constitution and its Amendments.

These are just three of the points we need to clearly understand while not allowing some group like the NRA to subvert and abuse us as a nation for their own slighted agenda and for greed and for power. In light of the disgusting travesties like the Orlando Pulse massacre we can not sit idly by doing nothing, yet again. But we need to stand up to the bullies like the NRA and actually do something useful.

Background checks are the least we can do, as is disallowing those on a Terrorist (TSA) No Fly List from buying guns. Which is not the much larger Terrorist Watch List which people keep confusing with the No Fly List.

What to do if you find you're on a No Fly List.

There is also no reason we need to access a firearm on the same day of purchase and it is wise for there to be a waiting period. I would argue a much longer one than what has been typical in being only three days. We want a gun today when we finally get the money for one. But we don't have to have it, the nation doesn't need to have us need to have it the same day.

In waiting to receive a weapon, it gives us a chance to run a proper background check, to give hot headed potential murderers a chance to calm down, those few who would benefit by a cooling off period, and it exemplifies to us all the import and respect of receiving, owning, and having the right to own, a firearm. 

Firearms purchases should force us to require much planning and thought and most of all respect for their purpose and reason for existing, attaining and retaining. For their purpose is, to kill. Even if you only ever use one for target practice. If you buy cars with the intent purposes of driving them off cliffs so they fly for a moment or two, they were still constructed to be driven.

NOTE on the term "assault rifle":

Don't call them assault rifles! Conservatives don't respond properly to that just as with much of reality and rationality. I'm so sick of their twisting everything just to get their own way.

Many of them believe assault rifles were named as such by the left wing media in the 90s for the assault weapons ban. When really it came about by weapons manufacturer Brunswick Corporation (yes the bowling ball people, among their many other products) way back in 1977 for their RAW (Rifleman's Assault Weapon) rifle, later used by the US Marines in the 1990s.

One could even argue that Hitler's storm rifle translates as the 1943 "assault rifle". From German Sturmgewehr ("assault rifle", literally "storm rifle"). The Maschinenpistole 44 was called the Sturmgewehr by Adolf Hitler, whence it was renamed to represent the separate class of firearm it represented. From assault + rifle.

Wikipedia:
"Others say the firearms industry itself introduced the term "assault weapon" to build interest in new product lines.[8] Phillip Peterson, the author of Gun Digest Buyer’s Guide to Assault Weapons (2008) wrote:

"The popularly held idea that the term 'assault weapon' originated with anti-gun activists is wrong. The term was first adopted by manufacturers, wholesalers, importers and dealers in the American firearms industry to stimulate sales of certain firearms that did not have an appearance that was familiar to many firearms owners. The manufacturers and gun writers of the day needed a catchy name to identify this new type of gun.[24]"

So for all our sake and that of conservatives so they stop looking even dumber than normal, consider possibly calling them:

FBBGs (for Fast Bang Bang Guns).

Not enough? Want more? The tide may be changing.

SCOTUS on domestic violence.

How about this:

Family of AR-15 Inventor Eugene Stoner: He Didn't Intend It for Civilians

Let's face it, civilians do not need military style weapons. Join the military if you want to play soldier and guess what? If you do you don't get to keep your automatic or semi auto weapon in your barracks room while off duty. Unless perhaps if you're actually soldiering, in a war environment. Then it's only reasonable. Because your soldiering, in a war theatre.

Here's a good one....

Breaking Down Gun Nuts: 10 Ways to Determine if Someone is Too Mentally Ill to Own Guns

And now this....

The 2nd Amendment Wasn’t Written To Mean ‘Let Any Damn Idiot Have A Gun’

And if that wasn't the nail in the coffin, this surely is....

From MarketWatch:
"Opinion: What America’s gun fanatics won’t tell you" by Brett Arends

Just a touch from that article....

"The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution doesn’t just say Congress shall not infringe the right to “keep and bear arms.” It specifically says that right exists in order to maintain “a well-regulated militia.” Even the late conservative Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia admitted those words weren’t in there by accident. Oh, and the Constitution doesn’t just say a “militia.” It says a “well-regulated” militia.

"What did the Founding Fathers mean by that? We don’t have to guess because they told us. In Federalist No. 29 of the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton explained at great length precisely what a “well-regulated militia” was, why the Founding Fathers thought we needed one, and why they wanted to protect it from being disarmed by the federal government."

I wish you all the best. I wish us all the best....

And now, from Amy Schumer, this.

Guns, guns, guns...American Guns? Jihadi Guns?

Here's what I think about guns in America, gun ownership and gun control be it for American citizens, or domestic or foreign terrorists on American soil. It is actually all about control now, isn't it?

People saying they want no gun control are merely deluding themselves or lying. No one, doesn't want gun control. It's all about how much control that is in question and if what we have in place now, is enough.

Or enough in just the right ways.

Which we don't. Time to wake up kids. So much lately is really about how we perceive guns. And that, has got to change. But how do we do that?

With altering our perception of guns.

If you want to own a gun for hunting, then take a hunter's safety course. I used to help teach them myself when I was a young teen. I was myself in the military. As a teen I was in a local police sanctioned gun club, and on our high school's rifles team through high school. I used to reload, studied combat shooting. I know something about guns.

I've forgotten a lot about them actually as I'm no longer interested in needing to be proficient in them as a career. But I've been involved with them and the Martial Arts for as long as I can remember. I don't just mean hand to hand, open hand, or one on one fighting. Look up "martial" if you need to.

I have a degree in psychology in awareness and reasoning division, phenomenology, with an interest in systems and processes, and psyops. Also espionage and studied the old KGB tactics for years and how it affected MI6 and the CIA, as well as those associated histories. Also, how they affected general populations. So sociology and propaganda, politics and history.

I also know something about the issues surrounding guns.

Any informed talk about guns needs to consider the psychological, sociological, economic and such issues and yet, they seldom do. Myself, I've owned guns all my life since I was a teen and I've never had an "accident" such as we're seeing so much of now a days in children senselessly being harmed, family members being damaged or killed and just too many innocents "accidentally" being harmed, maimed or killed.

Now if you want another kind of gun than one just for hunting (for hunting think handgun, bolt action rifle or shotgun, with possible exceptions for special situations), you should be able to go to a gun range and just get to shoot whatever you want.

Rent it for an hour, shoot all you want, pay for the targets (oh hell let's throw the targets in for free in the gun's rental), but really you're paying for the shots. After all, those aren't cheap. We very well may need more of those types of firing ranges. I do wonder how many people might be happy to shoot but not own. Even if it's some, it's something.

If however you want to actually own your own gun and maintain it at home, then you should have to take an appropriate course to train you in its use, care and storage for what you want it for: target or home protection. You should have to take a course specific to that range of gun type, cartridge type, number of shots in the magazine or cylinder, and so on.

See? This is all building an import, a respect, an understanding of the danger and impact a weapon has on human beings and those around them. This isn't nothing It's important to understand, this is not a damn toy. It's a tool, a weapon, that is inherently designed to take life and so needs always to be treated as such. People are far too cavalier anymore with them. Too many shots on TV and in movies. Too many people dying in video games, films and media, for make believe and for real.

But when people die, they are dead and it affects a ripple effect of people around them and at times, a nation, or the world.

Should you want a gun for more intense purposes as in concealed carry, you should have to take a course specific to the type of carry that you are considering (under penalty of law if you are later found to have exceeded that license), and you should have to regularly update it... annually.

I might even say update it every five years which is ridiculous (although then you'd have to take a longer course). And of course you'd have to apply with your local Sheriff's department for a concealed carry permit and have them background check you and issue it or not, as might be appropriate.

That, is for a citizen.

If you want anything beyond that as in a professional license (private investigator, personal protection specialist, etc.), you are into another professional category entirely and that's for another blog.

The Government should pay for all of this if it's a right and yes, I see conservatives cringing. But hey, you can't have everything. This is adulthood, pal. Pay up or shut up. And if the citizen has the right, someone has to pay for it. As per the conservatives whining, as most citizens couldn't afford all this it would have to be covered by all citizens.

Because if things go wrong, after all, we ALL end up paying for it!

If the country overall wants to have guns, then we all have to be covering the cost of that. Again, you pay for the shots at the range. Again, those things are expensive. Again, it takes regular practice on all of this.

If you think you can just buy a gun for home or carry and you're good, well...any professional will point out what a child you are being. If not a mental defect. How ill informed you are is bordering on delusional.

The Founding Fathers wanted to guarantee us guns. But come one, let's face it....

LIFE WAS DIFFERENT BACK THEN! And again, that's another blog entirely.

Let's talk about emotions for a moment or two.

A couple of things frequently associated with gun incidents... like anger and hate.

Sure guns can be fun, people can and do even love them. But if you have positive emotions about guns and you are doing positive things, then we have nothing to talk about. Right?

However, if you have negative emotions and you do negative things with guns... well, that is when we do have a problem and that is what all the controversy in America is about right now. And exactly WHY we have to do SOME thing about all this.

We have seen mass shootings because of hate, because of paranoia, crimes committed due to mental health issues. Most people want to do something about it. Many, mostly on the right, don't and mostly because of the slippery slope argument, and because of other arguments where they rationalize doing nothing about, painting themselves into a corner just because of fear and emotions. Behind all of this however is power and money, greed and fear, pushed onto Americans by the NRA.

There are however some people offering sane and rational discussions of the gun issues in America including those things mentioned above.

We are now regularly seeing children killing siblings accidentally and shooting their parents (maybe accidentally, though one wonders with tongue in cheek about that at times). After all some parents kind of deserve to be shot. Karma, right? We see these killings and maimings in the media all the time anymore.

Look. I don't myself actually hate ANYone. It's just not in my nature. So. Can I still be an American Mr. Conservative Right Wing Nut Person? And yes, we have wingnuts on both sides of the spectrum, but honestly, the most dangerous and most often they are on the right, conservative end and of late have become ubiquitous.

My grandmother used to tell me when I was young, if ever I said I hated something, that:

"We don't hate anything. It's a very strong emotion. It takes up a lot of energy. We just don't have enough energy in our lives to live properly and still hate." What a great view on life, right? Yeah, she was pretty amazing. We should all be so lucky as to have a Grandmother like her.

I asked her once (we were Catholic) back then when I was young and still innocent:

"What about Satan? He's the greatest evil thing there is so, can't we hate him?"

I knew I had her that time. I was beaming inside with pride and integrity.

Then without skipping a beat, she said:

"No, not even Satan." She was the greatest person I knew.

So... I don't hate. I have experienced strong dislike, to be sure and some people definitely earn that. Lately and frequently for Republican and conservatives speaking out in the media, or running for public government office...there's plenty of foolish people out there to have a strong dislike for.

When I studied martial arts as a child I was taught that you never get mad in a fight. Strong emotions make you blind to something, they make you stupid. If you get mad you have already lost the fight, they would tell us. Always remain calm, methodical, and think. You are rational, you evaluate, you act appropriately to the situation as it unfolds.

If anything you do your best to enrage your opponent, to make them dumber, to make foolish moves. Because while they are mad, they cannot think as clearly as you are thinking, if you remain calm and sensible yourself, that is.

They also told us you should win the fight within the first five to nine seconds or you've already lost. Although you should continue to try to win, if that happens, obviously. What they were saying is that winning is in the before time, in seeing it coming, in diffusing it before and then in winning it as soon as it begins, if it even gets that far. Then you are the true victor. The Warrior of Peace. For Peace.

The greatest warrior is one that has won the battle before it begins, Sun Tzu tells us.

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

It's always best to have seen the situation coming and end it as it begins, if not sooner.

It's better to run away from a fight, than to be responsible for killing someone I was told in Karate. Be called a coward our Sensei told us, as long as we avoid killing someone. But if they do try to kill you, allow them to go to the next life before you. Once engaged in battle, win, even though in some ways you have already lost. But that is the difference between the short game and the long game.

Because that is what we were being taught, back then, to kill (for me, beginning in fifth grade). If you kill someone it is your responsibility in that they did not know you have that killing knowledge. They are at a disadvantage in their ignorance, they do not fully understand o have all the information they need to save their own life. Therefore if they die you did it, it was in your hands.

We were taught back then in 1965 to say to them before engaging in a fight, three times (however fast you had to say it) that: "I know Karate."

Then at least they were forewarned and it was then up to them to continue. What I discovered in practice however was that it didn't really work. It seemed to embolden them. It just was something which was better than nothing, better then giving them no warning or information whatsoever. They never believed it, they thought it was a ploy, or they didn't or couldn't understand it.

When I later found and studied Aikido they taught us when someone attacks you, they are not your enemy. We do not see things in that way in Aikido. They are merely your practice partner. You are in this together. You are both human beings. You remain calm.

You try to educate both yourself and them in hopefully being, in practicing being, compassionate beings. If they aren't then perhaps in their interaction with you at that time they may learn to be. At least a little.

In several fights I have had in my lifetime, because of how I acted during the fight, in having been victorious mostly at the end of the situation, the other person, even though they had started it all, learned something and actually remarked upon it.

One time I threw a guy down during a fight. He was a stranger bigger than me, who picked a fight with me for no reason I could figure. Half way going down I reached out and grabbed him, I kept him from striking his head on the concrete sidewalk. I had showed my superior fighting skills and my superior compassion in protecting him from himself (or from me) and he was quite aware of it. It would have been hard not to be.

As I helped him to stand again, he could have attacked me but he recognized that I could have killed him simply by not acting to save him. There was a look of stunned surprise on his face, and appreciation. He asked me: "Why did you do that?"

I said: "I didn't want this fight. You started it. If I hadn't stopped your fall, it would have killed you." That led to a discussion. We then parted, never to see one another again. But he left me with a different view on life. That was obvious. He walked away seeming somehow, changed.

Everything is a learning experience. Or you are doing things wrong. When you come up to someone in a situation such as that:

First you do your best to see their orientation.
Then you show them your orientation.
Then you release them and let them go on their way.

Needless to say depending up on their "orientation", the letting them... "go on their way" may mean into their next life. Which very well may actually just be letting them leave this life.

In Aikido, much of what happens is up to the other guy.

And so it is in life.

Guns, make this very hard to do. Due to the density of the energies involved, it speeds everything up. We need to be very aware of things much further ahead of time than in a non weapon confrontation. This has been the case ever since the first indirect weapon was put to use. The rock, the sling shot, the spear, and finally the arrow. Then came the gun, massively beyond the capabilities of the arrow.

Much of warring is misunderstanding, or a lack of compromise, or lack of reason or understanding to compromise. Lack of compassion, perhaps on both sides.

No compassion means damage done by all to all around the situation.

Getting back to guns we need education, orientation, massive more respect for them than we have seen of late. We need understanding and compassion for everyone around any gun, ever.

When you then delve into things like bombs well, you can see the progression there and the need.
It is massive.

So. Is there anything we can do about the gun situation today?

Yes. Of course there is. We just need to do it.

Finally, remember the paraphrased words of President Lincoln from his 1838 Lyceum address:

"Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide."

When you consider such people as are in the NRA and our conservative right wing with its potential presidential candidates like Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and others in the current 2016 Republican candidate run, consider these further words of Pres. Lincoln:

"It is to deny what the history of the world tells us is true, to suppose that men of ambition and talents will not continue to spring up amongst us. And when they do, they will as naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion as others have done before them. The question then is, Can that gratification be found in supporting and maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others? Most certainly it cannot. Many great and good men, sufficiently qualified for any task they should undertake, may ever be found whose ambition would aspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair; but such belong not to the family of the lion or the tribe of the eagle. What! think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon? Never! Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored. It sees no distinction in adding story to story upon the monuments of fame erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves or enslaving freemen. Is it unreasonable, then, to expect that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time spring up among us? And when such an one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs.Distinction will be his paramount object, and although he would as willingly, perhaps more so, acquire it by doing good as harm, yet, that opportunity being past, and nothing left to be done in the way of building up, he would set boldly to the task of pulling down."

Perhaps only we can bring ourselves down. 

How about we just don't do that? Let's think, let's work together to evoke positive change in all the right ways. Against fear, against hate, and against our biggest foes of greed, political disinformation and ignorance. 

So I ask again... is there anything we can do about the gun situation today?

Yes. Of course there is. We just need to do it.

Do we really need gun control in America?

Something about gun control just occurred to me. We need it.

Conservatives who are pro gun and concerned about having guns to protect themselves from their own government, are part of the group who have a strangle hold on America in many questionable ways. IF they are truly worried about their government to the point that they need assault rifles should they need to bear arms against their own nation and government, then they should vote appropriately to keep that from being a concern.

So that they do not need guns to protect themselves from their own government. Then they would not need assault weapons, just if anything, hunting and sport weapons and assault weapons (ASSAULT) weapons, are not sport firearms. Listen to this again.
Assault weapons are not sport firearms.

They are weapons.

If they think they need to protect themselves from their own government they need to be active in their government to keep vigilant so they never need weapons against their own stewards of their nation. if their nation is not going the direction they think it should be going and they are involved, perhaps they are looking at things wrong and in the end they are the ones who aren't seeing reality, who aren't evolving. Assault weapons are fun.

There is no doubt about that. Owning a fighter jet or a tank would be fun. Boom, ha ha. Yes, fun. But we should limit weapons. Otherwise nukes would be legal and most would agree that isn't a good idea. So there are limits, there is a border. Perhaps we do not need assault weapons. Yes the old argument when guns are outlawed only criminals will have guns is a double meaning. Only thugs will have and use guns illegally and only law abiding citizens will own them illegally because they have the moral right somehow to them.

If we have guns being used illegally more guns aren't the answer. Social programs are. Yes, that means spending money and spending it correctly. And I wouldn't look to a conservative for that answer. We need mental health considerations and programs. We need to address the things that have led us down a path of having more people in prison than any other country, more deaths by gun than any other country in peace time.

We can have guns enough however and of a type to protect ourselves against illegal guns. Yes, some will die because they too do not have a machine gun. But that is part of life. It's unfair. But when you consider the number of these incidents it's really not much of an issue, it's a fear stoked by people with an agenda that goes all the way up to the gun manufacturers and back around to the most powerful lobby in the world. The US gun lobby. The NRA.

Part of the nightmare we have today, the polarized separation of left and right, of conservatives and liberals falls right on the head of the NRA's divisiveness over past decades and Wayne LaPierre's actions in particular. A man who couldn't even use a gun when he started with the NRA. He was a politician seeking power and he found it in the ignorance and power of the NRA's membership and advocates. He has turned the NRA into something that politicians and Americans fear as well as gun manufacturers.

To say like LaPierre said, what if an armed and trained individual was there when a grade school got shot up, is a stupid, monstrous, decisive thing to say. Inflammatory and it got him a lot of donations from those he was trying to inflame. What if a cop where there? How often are cops really where shootings happen? It's a pipe dream. It's ineffectual. It's a lie.

Then the one time the NRA under LaPierre was going to compromise, after the Sandy Hook school shootings, the Gun Owners of America group, and even harder core of gun supporters than the NRA stepped in and subverted what could have been a good thing, saying that if you give in once you set the tempo for losing more. Which is a stupid thing to say, it's a politician's thing to say, a conservative's comment, a professional's comment, showing no real concern for people at all or for the real issues at hand.

The real issue is not guns, it's people. It's not about people's entertainment shooting guns, it's certainly not for the most of us, about food, shooting game, it's not about protecting America from it's own government. It's about people dying. Or not dying, through some common sense and reasonable measures to protect the citizens of this nation, from themselves. The odd and ironic thing about this is that the citizens of this nation are trying as hard as they can not to protect the citizens of this nation, from themselves.

The point is that those who think they need all guns all the time will never feel safe. Nothing will ever be enough. They will never trust the government, a functionary that swings like a pendulum from year to year election to election from right to left and back again. It's apart of democracy. What these people want is not democracy however. It's something else. And it's something we don't want or need as a nation.

It's past time to do something about it, put these people in their place, and push the NRA back into the safety and sport organization it once was, and was what I grew up with when I looked up to the NRA not as a beast trying to wear sheep's clothing but as an advocate for safety and sport, not murder and mayhem and power.

I used to belong to the NRA. I belongs when I was a kid int he 1960s and was proud of it. I haven't belonged to it in many yeas now. Because I dont' even recognize what it is anymore.

Do we need gun control in America? That's not even a question, it's a fact.

Welcome back, Mr. President - Guns, Guns, Guns

Pres. Obama has been Inaugurated. A second term for the Harvard Law Professor. On an appropriate day, Martin Luther King Day. Especially so, as he was killed by a gun (we'll get to that in a moment).

Let me absorb that a moment. We have now gone from the buffoon from Texas who has pretty much devastated this country, with prior help admittedly, to an actual intellectual. Sigh....

Congratulations to us for staving off the ridiculous right wing extremists, overly conservative conservatives, and the way too pro religion nutzos.

On the other hand, if you are one of those, well, my condolences. Read a book

Oh, come on! Just having a bit of fun with this....

Now, I am trying to stay away from politics. I'm a writer. I really just want to write. But I see so much stupidity lately in government (especially in the GOP), in our society, it's hard not to speak out sometimes, to get distracted.

So, because today is a special day and we thankfully have an intelligent man once again sworn into office as President, I am going to speak out. Regardless what you think about the President's orientation and policies, that is important, that he is an educated and intelligent individual and not a lame brain jackal. Okay, maybe that's a bit strong, how about, jackass? So, I'm going to say something today, then next week hopefully get back to mere writing issues.

Is life perfect now after one term in office? No, not quite. Have we expected too much of Barack Obama? Yes. And, no. He took on the job, so that's that. But we do need to be reasonable. We've handed the man an almost impossible task and after all, you never can please everyone. Had Bush still been in office, I doubt we'd be in this good a situation. I fear it would have been far worse, so compare now to that sad possibility.

Consider the President's position now on gun control, against that of groups like, the NRA. There's a group for you. Let's ban assault rifles? No? Why? Because we should what? Put assault rifles in schools to protect children from the very few crazies out there who MIGHT attack one of thousands of schools? Isn't THAT crazy?

Actually? Yes, it is.

But but before we consider the Second Amendment, I want to say one thing. We shouldn't be so worried about losing our Second Amendment rights, as we should be worried about losing all our other rights. Privacy rights, legal rights, rights against corporations who have wrangled their positions to have more rights than we do as citizens, which this country was founded upon. That might be the most important right we are losing, protection against big money, monopolies and the definition of what a monopoly now a days, is considered to be.

But Privacy? What little Bush started with taking away our privacy and rights to being arrested with due process and so on, Mr. Obama has apparently not gotten rid of either. I think it's time we address that rape of the constitution. I hope he does address it in his next four years, but I don't have high hopes. Even if he does that, will Congress allow it to happen? But that is another issue. Like, what the Hell is wrong with THOSE people?

Another author friend of mine just mentioned to me an article he read the other day on how the Second Amendment had a lot to do with slavery and the militias that hunted down runaways, etc. Interesting.

From the article The Second Amendment was Ratified to Protect Slavery, by Thom Hartmann:

"But [Patrick] Henry, [George] Mason and others wanted southern states to preserve their slave-patrol militias independent of the federal government.  So Madison changed the word "country" to the word "state," and redrafted the Second Amendment into today's form:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State [emphasis mine], the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

"Little did Madison realize that one day in the future weapons-manufacturing corporations, newly defined as "persons" by a Supreme Court some have called dysfunctional, would use his slave patrol militia amendment to protect their "right" to manufacture and sell assault weapons used to murder schoolchildren."

Okay, if we ban assault weapons of extended magazines, that isn't the end. There are still other ways. For hundreds of years people knew you had to carry multiple weapons as extended magazines weren't available. Multiple guns, hand guns, shotguns, no guns? Bombs. Or something we haven't thought of yet that, and don't be surprised, some nutzo will eventually come up with a new way to kill.

So, you don't want to lose your right to own an assault rifle?

Some are saying, okay, if you want to shoot one, you should have to go to a licenced firing range where the weapons are protected and locked up when unused. Well, that actually won't stop the crazies. Actually, most gun laws only, as people say, crimp the style of legal, law abiding gun owners.

But here is something to consider. And consider along with this that I am a gun owner. I have been since I was in Jr. High and I had a 20 gauge shotgun (with shells) as well as a .303 British (a rifle type that was powerful enough to have been used many decades ago in Africa to kill elephants). Being so into guns as a kid (gun crazy as she put it) my mother made me join a young people's local, police sanctioned shooting club. She actually called the police department for a recommendation: "If you're going to be so nuts about guns, you'er going to learn about them properly."

That training, made me not be nuts about guns. I still liked them, but I learned they are tools, not toys. Killing tools. Which I learned to turn into a sport. I kill paper not, not critters. Or people. But if the Army ever showed up and handed me a gun and said let's go, we've been invaded, or something, I can definitely hit what I aim at.

I have belonged to firing ranges. I'm ex military. I was headed into a career that would have semi frequently ended me up on the wrong end of a gun as a career. Most likely in a dark alley in a foreign country, somewhere. I own what would be considered an assault weapon, several even. But it's always been my contention that although I enjoy owning and using them, legally, properly, safely, if they were taken from me due to laws, fine. But I won't allow someone to break in and take them, especially if I'm not home. They are protected.

If I ever found myself, after having my guns taken from me, in a situation where I need assault weapons, I'd find another way, should it come to that. See, there are always alternates  You just have to be smart, knowledgeable, educated about the things you need to know about. A gun, isn't always the right answer. If things are going wrong, use your mind, talk. And if you do need to start killing people, you don't have to have a gun. It's helpful certainly, but it's not always the way to go.

If you need to kill groups of people, a gun is actually somewhat ineffective. If a revolution starts, if we are invaded, if our country simply fails, or the "zombie apocalypse" hits, there are always other ways. Guns are just the easiest and laziest WMD. Yes, I'd prefer one in an apocalyptic situation. But I'll make due, either way. I am a survivor. Worst case, others will always have them and if they decide to cross my path, that is their own fault for losing their own life and weapons. You have to think ahead, look before you leap in those situations. Always have a plan B.

See. Things are never that bad, in any situation. Till you stop breathing.

Now, all that being said, if we don't have guns, and someone wants to kill groups of people, there are other ways to do it. I'd actually prefer someone open fire on me with a gun, rather than a bomb, or a chemical or biological weapon. Both of which can be produced in the home, by a semi intelligent individual, from information freely available off the internet, or from a library. And let me tell you, a less than average individual who is insanely dedicated to finding a way to kill groups of people, can act as if they were much more intelligent, than they normally are.

Okay, here's a suggestion about gun control. You want an assault weapon? Fine. Then you have to use it. The second amendment says what?

"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." (as sent to and ratified by the states and Thomas Jefferson)

Okay then. That second section is dependent upon the first section. Right? So. Get your fat ass out to a militia, and I don't mean Joe Bob's militia, no getting high, or drunk. Guns, are serious business. I mean a designated, functional, real ass militia run by the military, designated by the military, for the people and essentially by the people, but the real, functional people (trained professionally) who know what they are doing. Which is, the military.

Militia, should have Military Advisers, just like third world countries get from us, Advisers with teeth though, authority. After all this isn't a third world country, it is OUR country. And if you're not up to snuff pal, if you don't have appropriate attitude (yes, attitude), or security at your house to store your assault weapons, then you lose them. Oh, you can still own them, you just can't house them, because you have been deemed ineffective in their being secured.

See, what is intrinsic in that amendment are several issues related to those words used, their meanings and the functionality of those words and meanings. A bunch of yahoos playing soldier (and drinking beers) is not a "well regulated" militia. See? Get it? Comprende?

Think about it.

It just dawned on me how many have no clue what this really meant back at the birth of the nation, or what that translates into now. Things change. $100,000 back then is like $6 million, now. Possibly like the meaning of the word, "Militia", as I indicated above in that article reference from my friend.

If they had these kinds of assault weapons back then, and if people were shooting them off at public houses and Inns killing people, this amendment would have been rewritten 'tout de suite' (you know, toot sweet), just so you could finish your beer before having to deal with whipping out your own assault rifle. See, you don't get to have rights to WMD's without appropriate justification and capability and that is stated right there within the amendment: "a well regulated militia".

Consider too that back then, a WMD was multiple men with weapons. It took, multiple weapons to be a weapon of mass destruction, not just one. Now, with assault weapons, it really only takes one weapon, one assault rifle, to be a WMD.

People think that means (whatever they want to think it means typically) "well regulated" is from, without. But it also, or more likely means from, within. And that means, training. So guess what? Grab your assault rifle and get ready for some getting yelled at and, actually hitting some targets and, making it over some terrain to practice what it is really like to be in a modern day militia.

One might consider that with our greater understanding of things and technology, this would mean a Military Reserve Unit.

But it doesn't have to.

Just enough training to make these weapons safer in the public arena and secured from all the nutzos who are using them inappropriately (or too appropriately, depending on how you view it). And, if you're nuts, your Sergeant, I guarantee, is going to see it out on the practice fields. At that point: "You can just leave your weapon(s) at the armory till we look further into this.... Pal."

Anyway....

Obviously I don't think the Pres. went far enough on his gun control suggestions. Okay, executive order. Or whatever.

And much of this is a moot point anyway. Because what we need isn't so much gun control, but a fundamental change in our entire society.

Why, if I had some serious killing weapons in my room as a child (no that isn't the issue), why didn't I ever use them to kill anyone?

Maybe because I had the same angst as people do now a days. I just didn't believe in using a gun to exercise my frustrations. Why? I think partly it has to do with having taken away too much control from children. That explains our children turning their frustrations inward to themselves ("cutting", etc.), rather than allowing them to spill out and be seen, through acting out in their obvious social behaviors. Now things are hidden. Till it's too late. They tend to react inwardly, till they can't take it anymore and the explode outward, into the public.

Yes, that is all theory and it is an argument I've given in prior blogs and is for another time, not really for here.

But ask yourself, what has changed in our society? We need to change how we think, at a very basic level. We need to think, to consider how we raise our children, how we show them to view their world, our entire world. Who we are.

You see WE, need to change. As a People.

But I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Just, think about it.

And congratulations once again, to President Obama, and to us.

Mass killings: Prayer fixes all? Probably not.

Mass killings are horrible. Especially when children are involved.

But let's look at another thing briefly, so is war. This has been happening to those parents in war zones. It's currently going on. Children are dying around the world, not just in America. We are not that special; children are. So if you don't like your kids being killed, or American kids being killed, think about those parents around the world whose children are dead and dying because of war; because of Syrian's bombs, Palestinian's, Israeli's, and American's bombs.

Now about American mass murderers....

We NEED GUN CONTROL! Right? That will fix everything. It will keep guns out of the hands of  murderers and criminals! Right?

Well, not exactly.

We have guns. That's just how it is. We should look at gun control some, but it's not a solution. The guns aren't killing people. You've heard this before: People, are killing people. Did you know that in Switzerland every other citizen owns a gun and their murder rates with guns are extremely low. In 2002 Swiss murders by firearms, 67, in America that year, 9369. So, it's not just about firearms existing. Something about the people, their attitude, is different.

I've helped teach hunter's safety courses before. I own guns. But I've always wondered, how come you need training and testing to get a drivers license, but not to get a gun? How is it you can study and pass a driver's test and then you get to drive around a 2,000 lb killing machine, but you can buy a gun and in zero to three days or a week, put a comparable concept of a 2,000 lbs killing machine in your pocket and carry it around.

Then if and whenever you choose, you can expose it and spew out death repeatedly and quickly. And according to the New York Times, the average weight of an American car now is 4,000 pounds. Likewise, the assault rifle is becoming more common around America, yet the handgun kills more than anything else, and daily on the streets of cities like New York and Chicago and others. So in a way, assault rifles have gotten a bad rep through a few horrific incidences.

Yet acquiring a gun requires absolutely no accountability, no training, no conscientious building of skill or respect to own one?

Consider in this latest mass murder in Connecticut, how could gun control have stopped this? The killer didn't even own a gun but had three which he took from his mother, after first killing her. That went right around gun control, effectively, making it useless; in fact, a moot point.

Gun control and politics are not the answer. The issue is much bigger than that. But no one wants to face it. But I'm going to face it here and now, for you.

From Masculinity and Mass Violence The ‘Intimate Enemy’ We Refuse to Name, By ELIZABETH DRESCHER:

"Race and religion are certainly root similarities among Timothy McVeigh, Jared Loughner, Anders Breivik, James Holmes, Wade Michael Page, and Thomas Caffall—all white, all Christian."

Someone on my FB page the other day said that the whole problem is not enough prayer. Really? How many times has prayer kept a murderer from killing? Very, VERY seldom. Frequently, I would suspect, it gets you laughed at, just before they kill you.

From What’s the common denominator for mass murderers? White, Male, Christian, or Crazy: answer may surprise you:

"Prayer has nothing to do with fixing this. After all, many killers have religious, even more so, strict religious roots. From an article, Drescher’s [see quote/URL at top] conclusion is: “by and large the common denominator in mass killing is gender; the intimate enemy [the killer] is almost always a man. Drescher rightly points out that a major player in the hegemony of the masculine is religion, which in the case of American Society means ”

And this:

“We cannot begin to address the culture of violence that is literally exploding all around us without acknowledging that “manning up” in American culture too often involves actions aimed at the subordination of others—women, children, nature—to the will of a man who, it is assumed, embodies the will of God. These often religiously informed, institutionalized, and naturalized versions of masculinity play no small part in the continuum of violence that moves from the domestic sphere to the public arena.

"As gender scholar Raewyn Connell has noted: “There are many causes of violence, including dispossession, poverty, greed, nationalism, racism, and other forms of inequality, bigotry and desire. Gender dynamics are by no means the whole story. Yet given the concentration of weapons and the practices of violence among men, gender patterns appear to be strategic. Masculinities are the forms in which many dynamics of violence take shape.”

Interesting, right?

So what is needed? Less strict religious upbringings, perhaps less prayer, not more, is needed. More attention to raising children to grow up as adults with reasonable self control and reasonable self discipline, positive masculine attitudes for boys and positive self image for both boys and girls.

I would like to say one thing about the President's comments this weekend in using the power of his office to "do something". Pres. Bush, after 9/11, wanted to "do something". So we went to warn with Iraq, an inappropriate reaction to an action by terrorists whom he was actually at odds with. I don't know what the President has in mind at this time, I doubt even he does at this time, but I do hope whatever action he takes, it is appropriate to the situation. Because the office of the President these past ten years or so, and our government in general, hasn't so much been appropriate, in their actions.

Like with "cutting" and "self abuse" behaviors, we have been raising our kids not to have outlets, so they internalize, self abuse. Then when they get tired of abusing themselves, they may lash out. When they lash out, be careful. You may be next.

We have learned not to raise our kids as our parents raised us. How to cut off certain behaviors  that today's parents had done as children. We have effectively frustrated our children and taken away their ability in some cases, maybe in many cases, to simply be children. To get into trouble, to learn by experience, to make mistakes and grow from them. They need to "act out" to release, to be heard. We need to pay attention to them, to give them appropriate releases in order to grow emotionally healthy.

In the end, gun control will not solve this problem. Having healthy Americans however, will. There will always be the individual who walks into a place and kills randomly. Sometimes, people are just crazy. But we're seeing too much of this for that to explain this. We need to reevaluate our own behaviors. We need more good mental health, positive role models. Consider how screwed up our Congress is? Kids see and hear about this. People need to stop being nuts, selfish, greedy, and start acting like mature and most importantly, intelligent, responsible adults, to give our kids a way to see how they should act.

We need to strengthen our population, our mental health, our societal health. Then we will stop seeing all this insanity. It goes into our culture, our corporations, our government. This issue is so big, no one is seeing it, and so no one thinks it can be fixed. But it can. Just not over night. And we need to start, now.

Look at your child(ren). Consider how you are raising them. Look to yourself. Because in the end, it's not just the other parents who raised a crazy kid, it's not just gun control that will fix this situation, it's not just someone else who is responsible. In the end, we are all responsible.

Also, there is another side to this we really need to consider. Watch this video of Dr. Michael Welner talks to the ladies of The View about mental illness as it relates to the Newtown, Connecticut shooting.