Another shooting in a gun-free zone

Here's a chart showing U.S. defense spending relative to that of other nations. 

Here's one of those cartogram things showing U.S. defense spending relative to our space on the globe. 

Here's a pie chart showing U.S. defense spending as a total of all discretionary spending. 

Go here to read an account of THE SECOND mass shooting at Fort Hood, Oklahoma.  Fort Hood is one of the largest U.S. Army bases.  This time the gunman killed 3 people and wounded 16 others. 

Look at the spending.  Read the account of the shooting.  The victims were having to call 911 (the emergency police number in the U.S.) to get help.  On a military base. 

Does this make any sense at all?  I hate that these innocent people lost their lives.  I'm not making light of this tragedy. 

But if they aren't allowed to protect themselves, what the hell are they doing for us?  Am I missing something? 

 

If Gun Control worked, Chicago would be Mayberry

Note to the Brits and Aussies and Kiwis who hit this site..... Mayberry is the fictional small town in the 1960's sitcom "The Andy Griffith Show".  Andy played the sheriff who never had much to do. 

This is one of the best 2nd Amendment rants I've ever heard.  The guy, Cam Edwards, makes some great points in a standup comedy format.  A brief excerpt:

If gun control worked, Chicago would be Mayberry right now! And Weld County and El Paso County would be Thunderdome! You guys wouldn’t have [Weld County] Sheriff [John] Cooke, you would have Tina Turner and Mel Gibson running around! It would be horrible! But that’s not real life! Real life is gun control not working in Chicago. Real life is gun control failing in Camden, New Jersey and Oakland, California, and a lot of other communities in this country . . .
We are pushing back with the lawsuits, with the phone calls to our legislators, by electing officials and supporting elected officials who listen to us. But we’re also pushing back by being grownups, and by being okay at it. By having hundreds of people show up at a range and fire thousands of shotgun shells . . . and everybody’s okay! And now we’re enjoying cigars and drinks and we’ll all get home safely tonight, right?
Because we can control our lives! We can manage our lives! It’s not too difficult. We’re not perfect. We may eat a little too much dessert every now and then. We may not be able to beat that one bad habit, like smoking cigarettes, whatever. But we’re a heck of a lot more capable than our government gives us credit for, aren’t we?

 Enjoy.  Put it on while you're doing the dishes or balancing your checkbook, or whatever.  Great, great stuff. 

 

They Passed A Law !!

The Case For More Guns

I read this in The Atlantic Monthly (hardly a right-wing Tea Party rag) a few days before the shooting in Connecticut. 
It's easily the most reasonable piece I've seen on the subject of guns in America.  Jeffery Goldberg is the author. 

Go here.  Kinda long, but worth it.

Here are the final paragraphs.....

But even some moderate gun-control activists, such as Dan Gross, have trouble accepting that guns in private hands can work effectively to counteract violence. When I asked him the question I posed to Stephen Barton and Tom Mauser—would you, at a moment when a stranger is shooting at you, prefer to have a gun, or not?—he answered by saying, “This is the conversation the gun lobby wants you to be having.” He pointed out some of the obvious flaws in concealed-carry laws, such as too-lax training standards and too much discretionary power on the part of local law-enforcement officials. He did say that if concealed-carry laws required background checks and training similar to what police recruits undergo, he would be slower to raise objections. But then he added: “In a fundamental way, isn’t this a question about the kind of society we want to live in?” Do we want to live in one “in which the answer to violence is more violence, where the answer to guns is more guns?”

What Gross won’t acknowledge is that in a nation of nearly 300 million guns, his question is irrelevant.

Jews For The Preservation Of Firearm Ownership

Go here to marvel at the website of "Jews For The Preservation Of Firearms Ownership"

The site refers you to the chart I've included below.  Here's some info on where these guys are coming from:

Why must all decent non-violent people fight against "gun control"? Why is the right to keep and bear arms truly a fundamental individual right? You can find the answers in this new book.

People frequently ask why we are so dedicated to our cause? This book answers that question by collecting the key facts and arguments in one place.

People have asked us to present the whole JPFO argument in one place. We have done it. Available now in an easy-reading format and a handy size, the new book is entitled Death by Gun Control: The Human Cost of Victim Disarmament.

The message is simple: Disarmed people are neither free nor safe - they become the criminals' prey and the tyrants' playthings. When the civilians are defenseless and their government goes bad, however, thousands and millions of innocents die.

Professor R.J. Rummel, author of the monumental book Death by Government, said: "Concentrated political power is the most dangerous thing on earth." For power to concentrate and become dangerous, the citizens must be disarmed.

What disarms the citizens? The idea of "gun control." It's the idea that only the government has the right to possess firearms, and that citizens have no unalienable right to use force to defend against aggression.

Death by Gun Control carefully examines the "gun control" idea: its meaning, its purposes, its effects. It comes in many forms, but in every form it enables the evildoers and works against righteous defense.

Yeah.  See below. 

The Genocide Chart © JPFO.org 2002
Government	Dates	Targets	Civilians Killed	"Gun Control" Laws	Features of Over-all "Gun Control" scheme
Ottoman Turkey	1915-1917	Armenians (mostly Christians)	1-1.5 million	Art. 166, Pen. Code, 1866 & 1911 Proclamation, 1915	• Permits required •Government list of owners •Ban on possession
Soviet Union	1929-1945	Political opponents; farming communities	20 million	Resolutions, 1918 Decree, July 12, 1920 Art. 59 & 182, Pen. code, 1926	•Licensing of owners •Ban on possession •Severe penalties
Nazi Germany & Occupied Europe	1933-1945	Political opponents; Jews; Gypsies; critics; "examples"	20 million	Law on Firearms & Ammun., 1928 Weapon Law, March 18, 1938 Regulations against Jews, 1938	•Registration & Licensing •Stricter handgun laws •Ban on possession
China, Nationalist	1927-1949	Political opponents; army conscripts; others	10 million	Art. 205, Crim. Code, 1914 Art. 186-87, Crim. Code, 1935	•Government permit system •Ban on private ownership
China, Red	1949-1952 1957-1960 1966-1976	Political opponents; Rural populations Enemies of the state	20-35 million	Act of Feb. 20, 1951 Act of Oct. 22, 1957	•Prison or death to "counter-revolutionary criminals" and anyone resisting any government program •Death penalty for supply guns to such "criminals"
Guatemala	1960-1981	Mayans & other Indians; political enemies	100,000- 200,000	Decree 36, Nov 25 •Act of 1932 Decree 386, 1947 Decree 283, 1964	•Register guns & owners •Licensing with high fees •Prohibit carrying guns •Bans on guns, sharp tools •Confiscation powers
Uganda	1971-1979	Christians Political enemies	300,000	Firearms Ordinance, 1955 Firearms Act, 1970	•Register all guns & owners •Licenses for transactions •Warrantless searches •Confiscation powers
Cambodia (Khmer Rouge)	1975-1979	Educated Persons; Political enemies	2 million	Art. 322-328, Penal Code Royal Ordinance 55, 1938	•Licenses for guns, owners, ammunition & transactions •Photo ID with fingerprints •License inspected quarterly
Rwanda	1994	Tutsi people	800,000	Decree-Law No. 12, 1979	•Register guns, owners, ammunition •Owners must justify need •Concealable guns illegal •Confiscating powers

Governments killed around 200 million of their own people in the previous century.  Never forget that.  Please. 

Why I Love Texas

Three of our state's university professors have come out strongly against the Victim Disarmament Laws:

"As college professors, we want to reduce the odds of a Virginia Tech massacre happening on a Texas college campus. That's why we encourage the Texas Legislature to allow concealed carry on the state's college campuses."

- Theodore Day and Stan Liebowitz, UT Dallas; Craig Pirrong, University of Houston.

Click here to read the entire glorious editorial.