Easily Debunking NRA's Wayne LaPierre's Lies

"Happy Mother's Day. You're child's been shot and killed."

This is life today in America and around the world. Except America has chosen it outright. We have argued it's a right. We have argued it's just as important as Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, or is even greater than that.

We have got to lay to rest this nonsense about how:

"Only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun."

First off, it's not true. Did we not only recently see how a young black man stopped a bad guy with a gun... with his bare hands?

Not that President Donald Trump would mention that in his racistly disparaged beliefs. Weren't there also two Marines in Belgium who did the same on a train just not that long ago?

Yes.

Certainly not the preferred method of going up against a gun, but it doesn't only take a gun, or a good guy.

After all, two guys rob a place, once starts shooting people, couldn't the bad guy suddenly go, "Hey, WTF?" And just shoot his partner because he may be a robber but not a murderer?

Yes.

There are some very serious realities that are being completely ignored in that soundbite pro gun nuts so dearly love to reiterate like (not smart parrots) but dumb mimics. You'll never hear reality (stated below) from these people, because they are in love with their guns and their hero worship complex.

MANY people who carry guns ARE looking to get to use them someday. That is really not what you want in a person carrying because they view it romantically. They see it more as a toy, entertainment, through a kind of faux hero syndrome filter. Not as what it is, a killing tool. Not as a machine of death, as it was designed to be. (oddly enough, they also deny that, much to the offense and confusion of gun manufacturers who put a lot of money and research into just that end)

MANY people who carry guns are carrying out of fear and will NOT use them in a real life shooter scenario unless their life is directly at risk. It just makes them feel safe. To pull a gun in a real scenario takes far more than they are willing to experience, and do not experience UNTIL they are faced with having to pull or not to pull a gun out and face down someone shooting at them. It's all fun and games until someone really is about to get hurt. And they know, they may miss entirely as they get gunned down.

MANY people who carry guns are not trained or not well trained. Sometimes not trained is better as they won't pull their gun when faced with death. A semi trained person can be a danger both to themselves and to others. When you can buy a gun and get a license to carry (or not and still carry), with no training whatsoever, you...YOU are the danger to society.

MANY people who carry guns will NOT ever pull out their gun and use it, UNLESS maybe directly threatened in a mass shooting and possibly, not even then. Facing down the reality of death evokes fight or flight, or FREEZE.

MANY people who carry guns will miss if they do pull and shoot, they will instead hit bystanders, never hitting the shooter at all. They will actually add to the death toll, the maiming count and in the end, the shooter could potentially get away or kill the "good" guy with a gun too, anyway. Effectively having helped in killing or harming as many as possible, which was the shooter's purpose in the first place. And how does THAT help the situation.

Let's not forget, some carring and pulling could potentially be shot by police when they arrive. Especially if you are black or a minority or look like a bad guy, merely from your dress. What if you're Muslim? Or just look Muslim? Police see a white guy who WAS shooting people, but they don't see his gun but instead yours, who's going to get shot?

These are the things you NEVER hear alluded to in that statement:

"Only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun."

It's a trap. It avoids reality. It avoids dealing with the actual issues of there being guns killing innocent people in the first place.

It's a stop gap measure to add guns to stop guns, but it's not the solution, not the long term fix.

It just sounds good, and makes people feel like they are important.

And after all, that's what pro gun types and organizations like the NRA, the GOP, are all about.

We're better than that. We CAN be, better than that.

BE, better than that.

Church and Guns

Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant recently signed a bill allowing people in his state for churches to legally have armed security.

Let that sink in.

Note the props: Reagan book, Bible with holstered gun on top

When a national gun culture finally invades your churches, your religion, it's really time to pay attention. Arming churches is not a religious reaction. It's a human, scientific reaction. We don't need to arm and militarize churches. Yes, they have been attacked. But few and it's not really reasonable in arming your church.

Religion should be a baseline for humaneness, for peace, spiritual security, for joy. Historically, for sanctuary. Not for anger, not lethal reactions.

This lack of continuity between religion and believers is untenable and hypocritical. People fear putting their beliefs on the line. They always have. And yet, they have martyred themselves to perpetuate their beliefs. Beliefs that have inspired countless millions over thousands of years. But many now see that it is better to arm their church, than to possibly die for their beliefs.

When I think about Church, about guns, I think back into my past. Back to when I was in the Air Force. My final main base was in Spokane, Washington. In 1975 I was at Fairchild AFB, a nuclear bomber base in the Strategic Air Command (SAC). We had fuel tankers, B-52 bombers, and were on alert 24/7/365.

In about 1977, I got friendly with the guy who gave out equipment in the base gym. My friend and I played racquetball every other day and lifted weights on those other days. If we needed anything we'd go to the equipment room attendant. We got to talking over a period of weeks about things in general, "guy stuff", guns and eventually, oddly enough, religion. Then one day he asked if I wanted to go to his church.

I was at a point in my life where I was ex Catholic, had been head altar boy at our church and in fact had been the altar boy serving at our old priest's open casket Mass for his funeral. My first time seeing a dead person. He looked good, the gentle kind soul I had known for years and served Mass with.

Later I went to a single final and graduating year of Catholic primary school (eighth grade). As I entered my young adult years, I was looking into the universe to see what there was, other than what I had been taught. I read a lot of books on philosophy, religion, even magic, a sign of the times in the 60s and 70s. You name it.

So with an invite to visit what sounded like a cool church, I figured, why not?

I told my wife about it. She probably couldn't have been happier that I wanted to go to church. After all, she was raised Baptist and we had been married in her church. Yes, the whole big church wedding and all. We divorced the year I got out of the Air Force. The guys told me when I arrived at my main base that no one survives that base and remains married. There were a lot of divorces, a lot of philandering, mostly with wives of enlisted fooling around with officers, especially pilots, the God's of the Air Force.

So my wife and I agreed to check out the guy's church with him and his wife. I told the guy the next time I went to the gym. Which was the next day. He said he would pick us up with his wife on Sunday morning and he would drive.

Well, that's nice of him, I thought.

Government as an entity, is typically rather stupid. Elements within the government however can be quite intelligent. yet there is a healthy dose of stupid among the employees. I was about to be stunned by the stupidity of this "nice" guy from the gym.

He had told me to bring my gun, that it was cool to wear a gun to church. I thought that was odd, but hey, I was open to see new ways of viewing the world. I carried concealed, legally, my Walther PPS\k .380 auto. Yes, I should have seen it coming. I should have seen something coming.

We headed out of Spokane toward the border. As we were crossing the border I got nervous and asked him about it. He said it was okay, the compound was in the hills of Idaho and it was beautiful there. About my concealed gun and his, and considering we were in the military, and I had a secret clearance unlike him, I was concerned about federal issues.

He said not to worry, you didn't need a concealed weapons permit in Idaho and where we were going it wouldn't be an issue. When we finally got there up into the hills of Idaho it was beautiful. We arrived at a gate that was unlocked and allowed us to pass. We were now on the property of the Church of Our American Christian Heritage. Beware a church that has in its name, "American" or "Heritage". Or any church who seems to have all the answers.

We drove up in his truck, a forerunner to today's SUVs. he pulled into an area of the compound with a traditional type well int he center and several buildings, one being an old fashioned church with the steeple and all. Several guys were wearing what looked to me like Nazi uniforms, only a different grey color, looking just different enough that you COULD claim, they weren't Nazi uniforms. When I mentioned the similarity (as well as the Hitler salute they used) they got offended. They weren't Nazis! Sure seemed like it to me though.

I won't detail the entire morning. But it was bizarre, surreal, disturbing, and scared the hell out of my wife. I worried if I didn't play it right, would I end up in the bottom of that well. They told us stories of how the local Sheriff was afraid of them and wouldn't come onto their property. The old ladies were the most racist people I had ever met.

Their national leader was there from Georgia to give a lecture at their church service. He didn't know we were there and were novices to their beliefs. He had really let go intimately detailing their beliefs and disgust at non whites, about the "cesspool of humanity that was Vancouver, B.C. Canada."

We got out of there eventually and never looked back. Don't get me wrong, these were very nice, polite and friendly people. I know deep down they meant well. But the things they believed in were immature, foolish, and frightening. As well as bad for humanity in general.

By time we got into the truck to head home that day, my wife had inadvertently nearly ripped off the sleeve of my shirt from repeatedly having grabbed it and holding on with dear life, while trying to look happy and at ease. Occasionally smiling and whispering she would say into my ear, "Get us out of here!"

The next day I considered telling the base about what was going on, but my racquetball friend talked me out of it. After all he said, those people know where you live and when you won't be home with your wife. It brought to mind a scary situation.

Gun and church do not belong together.

Pairing them is a massive warning that something is wrong. Perhaps, if your country has been invaded by an active force as happened in France, there is reason. But not here, not in America, and not since the Revolutionary or Civil War.

Needless to say we need a separation of Church and State, and Church and guns. If you want to protect your church from attack, try non lethal forms, try metal detectors, try anything, but leave your guns at home.

If your church is at all about death or killing, find another church. If your religion is death oriented like the three major desert religions of the Middle East, rethink your life choices.

Religion needs to be positive, life affirming and not about killing people.

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.

Contained Weapons and the state of the Ignorance of Intellectual Knowledge

I've been thinking for years that we need more non-lethal weapons for police... and military. I couldn't figure out why that hasn't happened yet. I also noticed there are ways of thinking being demonstrated in public, rationales, agendas and ideologies that feel very foreign to me as an intellectual and an american, and that frankly are, stupid.

I think we've gotten to a point when it may be more necessary than desirable to examine these things.

Regarding weaponry, for police TASERs are great but we still need something better. The new sound devices that make your skin feel hot and can be used in order to disperse crowds is one interesting solution to a problem usually made worse by police and government officials.

For the military, we really need to stop the majority of these drone attacks. We may also need to start giving consideration to building contained weaponry.

What I mean by that is... take for instance, the missiles that drone carry. A drone fires a missile (OK, a drone pilot fires it, whatever), the missile tracks it's target, strikes it and detonates destroying the target. As well as unintended collateral targets. That's innocent people, usually.

Too frequently this ends in overkill.

But what if when a bomb explodes, rather than an uncontained explosion, it sets off a fragmentation weapon where the pieces remain attached to the center of the device? In that way there'd be shrapnel all of which would remain a part of the original central part of the device.

It still shoots through any people or metal within the length of the chains or wires that maintains connection to the primary piece, but they would stop within the length of that constraint. We are developing materials, new concepts, new ways of thinking, that just might be conducive to this type of technology.

Here is one example: ‘Impossible’ Quantum Space Engine Actually Works – NASA Test Suggests. We're on the crux of many new things, some of those we need to start carrying over into more practical applications.

There are many other examples out there today that could lend themselves well to visualizing my point. The more you look for them, the more you find.

Maybe the missile hits the center of a truck. It explodes, individual fragments shoot out from the source, punching holes all through the truck, killing all in the vehicle, but anyone who is say, fifteen feet from the missile, is safe (OK, safer anyway), excepts perhaps for some flying truck debris.

There be the possibility of the odd case of the loss of an eye or some minor burns or pelleting, but very much more possibly, there could be no unintended deaths.

This is the kind of thinking we need to start using. To think within the box as well as without, not allowing as in this case, for the shrapnel or explosive power to extend beyond the containment of the area surrounding the blast.

We also need more contained devices allowing for temporary disablement or minor destruction. We need to knock a crowd out, rather than killing if not dissipating everyone within range. We need to stop thinking in terms of attrition by way of destruction and start thinking of attrition by way of disablement or temporary disablement.

Benign war over the horrors of war.

We have entered into the age of  the "Ignorance of Intellectual Knowledge".

So much of our knowledge now is limited and offering us only a flat effect. Book learning limited in scope.. Information that shows us superficial meanings, with limited definitions or explorations of topics. Information in two dimensions when we need as a minimum four, maybe more.

Our ability to acquire knowledge needs to be expanded as our bandwidth permits. Which is another issue. We need faster speeds in order to access knowledge more comprehensively on the internet and more information needs to be made available, world wide, along with functional AIs that are compartmentalized to protect their user, but which can also be honed to give 4D examples of what knowledge is actually needed.

We are currently enhancing our knowledge into stupidity and we need to enhance it into wisdom.

Why do you think there is so much detriment going on around the world as opposed to enlightenment? People are remaining ignorant at a far greater rate than ever before. In the past, we didn't lean that much and so our ignorance to knowledge ratio was low.

Now however we are learning vast amounts about many varied topics and yet, we are still remaining ignorant to many integral issues about and related to these topics. We don't just need to know more facts about each issue, we need more quality information about them and more quality ways of disseminating wisdom.

Which brings us back to contained weaponry. Weapons that exert control without destruction.

We are surrounded by a rapidly changing world that we mostly aren't even aware of. If we are, it is only superficially. We need to raise the knowledge of each and every person on this planet, we need to wipe out ignorance and magical thinking styles of compartmentalized thinking and agendas (think religious terrorism).

We need people to better understand why those they have voted into office to protect and enhance their lives are only exerting controls to enhance their own lives and that of the ideologues (and oligarchs) who protect them. We need people invested in humanity and not just their small concerns, their tribe, their tiny areas of control.

There is much going on all around us and in many cases it would seem that most of us really have no clue about it all. We find people with vastly different interests and concerns and so generally speaking, as tends to happen we then find a reason or need to kill them.

I would argue that war is not our most powerful weapon. Proper and appropriate knowledge is.

Contained weaponry may just be the beginning and thinking appropriately in order to devise these types of things, to then create and use such things, could all lead us along the path that is much more useful and productive than merely breaking social contracts and then killing those on the other side of those broken contracts.

We need new ways of thinking about our world, about our actions, and about our concerns. America's priorities have been screwed up for years. We have tried hard to see what they should be, and to put plans into action to bring those things to fruition.

We have also had those in power, many of those who are rich and getting richer all the time, who control those in power, all of which have obfuscated things through a fog of too much information or not enough quality information, who have fed us mis and disinformation, and have abused their rights as human beings.

They need to be called to be accounted for, or to have their power (money) stripped from them. There is truly no reason for any human being on this planet to have over a billion dollars in a limited and closed economic system such as we have on this planet. Nations should have billions, people, and that include corporations, should not. Most especially if corporations are ridiculously to be considered people!

The first step to all that is to see what is really happening all around us. The second is to stop allowing power and money brokers abusing the systems in place, the tools they have to abuse against us and which in the end are against all people and not just our state or nation.

The first step of all that which may just be our first destination is to enhance the quality of knowledge available to us. And perhaps the first step to that is to change our ways of thinking in order to see what we cannot seem to see now.

NOTE Friday 2/20/2015: Oddly enough the fact that this article this week so far has gotten far fewer hits than most of my articles do, actually proves my point about what I'm saying here. No one cares. No one is really considering or looking into much of this. We are lazy on a point that is so prevalent as to seem unreasonable to even consider, to talk about openly, or to try to change our current path and way of thinking on. And we have to. We really, really have to.

UPDATE  Friday 2/20/2015: Here's another consideration....

I know they've done studies of prayer, and belief in God helping people to excel beyond their norm. I saw research where they proved that it doesn't take a belief in God but a belief in a considered source of power outside of oneself, which seems to be key. So you can believe in God, or Rock, or Dog, for that matter, it's all the same. But I wonder if anyone has yet done a study showing which is more effective the belief in God, or the belief in a properly considered source of power out there beyond one self.

Which basically is like saying, "I've been hiking for 20 miles and I can't go another, so I'll select that tree in the distance and make it there. Then when you make it there, select another road map up ahead and repeat. That method has gotten me through long hikes, forced marches and efforts all through my life (I'll just write one more page before quitting for the day, now another....).

Considering prayer usually fails in requests, it's counterproductive at least to some degree, which is inherent in the process. But if you are directed to consider that which is a source of power outside of yourself in the right way it won't fail, or at least less often.

That, is the study I'd like to see done. It's all about new ways, more effective ways, of thinking. We have the knowledge, we just need to get it to the right processes, apply it, get the right people (most people) using it and I suspect, all of our lives would go in a much better direction.

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.