ANTI-GUN = PRO CAPITAL PUNISHMENT?

There are some thing in this world that just don't seem to make any sense. The top of the list for me is politicians. They claim one thing and then do another or do one thing and then claim another. It's as if they can't help themselves.

Let's take this whole issue of gun control. Yeah I know I've said a lot about it before but this just said a lot to me when I read it. These politicians are all talking about how many deaths occur because of guns in this country, especially with assault rifles. I guess they're getting their facts from Piers Morgan rather than from their own FBI. 

According to the FBI "More People Killed with Hammers, Clubs Each Year than Rifles According to the FBI annual crime statistics, the number of murders committed annually with hammers and clubs far outnumbers the number of murders committed with a rifle." And yet we don't have new laws going into effect saying that we should outlaw hammers and clubs. 

So maybe it's not just guns, maybe its assault weapons that we have to worry about. Yeah, that's the ticket. It's assault weapons that need to be removed! We need to make sure criminals don't have the tons of assault weapons that are owned in this country and use them to kill people! But here again the FBI facts don't match the fiction tossed out by these politicians. Once more according to the FBI "Citing a survey of 203,300 state and federal prisoners who were armed during the crime for which they were incarcerated, “fewer than 1 in 50, or less than 2 percent, used, carried, or possessed a semiautomatic assault weapon,” said the report."

Hmm. So criminals aren't using assault weapons to kill people. Then why the furor to ban assault weapons? Maybe it's because of the huge number of killings that are caused by assault weapons! That's surely the reason, right? Well there are only 158 ‘assault’ weapon homicides a year. That must be a lot of deaths because of assault weapons and thus we need to get rid of them all! 

Well not exactly. According to the article that much of this info came from "Statistically, you have a 0.00005% of being killed with one of these weapons. That’s a 1 in over 2 million chance".  Hmm. That doesn't seem like a killing a day now does it.

As a matter of fact the National Safety Council says that you have a greater chance of being killed by these items than by an assault weapon:

"Suicide, falling, being a pedestrian, drowning, riding a bicycle, plane crash, electrocution, exposure to heat, cataclysmic storm, stung by bees, wasps, and hornets, earthquake, lightning, fireworks discharge or bitten by dog."

The thing is it isn't popular for a politician to come out in a news brief to say he/she wants to ban ladders, walking down a sidewalk, lakes and swimming pools, planes, electricity (even green produced electricity), insects, seismic shifts of the planet (yeah try and enforce that one), fireworks or dogs. 


But here's the big one, the goody if you will. According to these papers "
You are more likely to be tried, convicted, sentenced to death, and legally executed in the US by the penal system than to be shot with so called ‘assault’ weapons." Yes the same government who wants to outlaw guns so you can't be killed with them is more likely to kill you than the same gun they want to outlaw. See what I mean about making sense?

Come on, there are ways to solve this problem. I have no problem with them making people wait for a background check to be able to purchase guns. I have no problem with eliminating gun shows where you can purchase a gun without that same background check. But to say you want to outlaw the sale of a particular gun or clip because you want to save lives is nothing more than a bold faced lie. So why not cut the crap and actually do your job for once there in Washington. Stop play acting for the cameras, stop saying feel good things just to get elected year after year after year and try and do some good for the people who sent you there. It would be nice after the decades of BS politicians to find at least one who would actually be honest.

Here is a link to the article that burned my biscuits and got me started on this rant. LOL.

Surprising Ways You Are More Likely To Die Than By Being Shot By ‘Assault’ Weapons

A CELEBRATION OF ABORTION

Have you ever looked at the folks who are pro-abortion? I mean have you watched them when they speak or talk about it? If they're talking about people who are pro-life they have this mean, angry look to them. But when they talk about having the right to kill unborn children they're all smiles. 

The other thing that's gotten to me lately is the fact that when it comes to talking about abortion they seem to always find a reason to celebrate their cause. It's always one big party when it comes time to anniversary time of the all important Roe v. Wade. Among those that seem to think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread are those involved in the media. I know I've said before that they have their own agenda. The fact is if you pay attention you'll learn that they do and what it is.

Let's take Roe v. Wade for instance. With the 40th anniversary of this controversial ruling that is still being discussed today we keep hearing women's rights speakers and politicians and news people talk about how wonderful that decision was. But what about those whose names were mentioned in that lawsuit? What about Roe or the lesser known Mary Doe of Doe v. Bolton? One would think that these two women in whose name abortion rights activists rallied would have something to say about that famous case.

Well the fact is that they do indeed have something to say. The problem is that it isn't about being for abortion but AGAINST it. Amazingly enough while one would think that to project the appearance of impartiality the media might want to present these women for all to see, we hear nothing from them. The truth is that both have become outspoken critics of abortion and the lawsuits that bear their names. They've both even tried to have those lawsuits reversed with no success. 

Want to hear their stories? Check it out here:

 

Two women are behind legalized abortion in America: now both of them want it reversed

 

Wouldn't it be nice if the press were just a tad impartial?

SHORT TERM MEMORY

I can't quite understand why politicians have such short term memory problems. It's like the only thing they can think about is what's right there in front of them. Unless it's finding a way to take Federal funds back to their home state, they only remember the most immediate of things. I sometimes wonder if they turn on the TV each night so they can no what to talk about the next day rather than have opinions of their own. Then again what they are supposed to be doing is what their constituents back home want, not what they personally want. Doesn't happen that way though does it?

Politicians always seem to forget just what has happened in the past. They always look at the present. And they all just seem to think that whatever happened in the past has nothing to do with today. It's aggravating to think about how THEY think! Remember the day after 9/11? They all stood on the steps of the Capitol and swore that they were unified. Before the end of the week they were looking for someone to blame. 

The worst offenders are those that think we don't need to protect our country. They seem to think that if they go to the United Nations and ask everyone to sing a round of "Khumbaya" that everything will be hunky dory. Nuclear weapons? Why sure anyone who stood against us didn't dare shoot anything off because they knew that retaliation would come their way. That's what kept everyone from going into a nuclear war (with the exception of perhaps Kruschev at one time). Lets dismantle the military because Heaven knows once we do that everything will be fine right? I mean the only reason anyone has any hostile ideas in their heads is because we keep picking on them, right?

What idiocy! They don't mess with us for one reason. To do so would result in making sure that we made sure they didn't do so again. Again think back to 9/11. We didn't turn planes into bombs in their country, they did it here. And the fact of the matter is that terrorists continue to attempt to do so to this day. Haven't these politicians who want to dismantle the military realized this yet? Are they that stupid? 

Does it need to be fixed and wasteful spending cut? Absolutely. But the same can be said of everything done in Washington. Why start with the military, something that is what the government is actually supposed to be in charge of and making sure stays intact as opposed to entitlements which aren't there.

After seeing SKYFALL this summer I've gone back and started reading the actual James Bond books written by Ian Fleming. One needs to keep in mind that these books were written some 60 years ago now. The latest I've read is MOONRAKER and no, it's nothing like the movie. Toss the movies aside when your read the books. In it Fleming had a line that stunned me. This book was written in 1955, two years before I was born, and Fleming knew then how ridiculous politicians were. The line is:

"These politicians can't see that the atomic age has created the most deadly saboteur in the history of the world - the little man with the heavy suitcase"

In essence he was talking about a dirty bomb back in 1955! So how do politicians think we should protect ourselves? Dismantle the military to start with. Secondly we should make sure the TSA is responsible for not allowing a bomb into this country. How do they accomplish this? By making sure they don't offend anyone with some sort of profiling and searching grannies bloomers for a bomb. 

I'd say a screening process for IQs should be required to be a Congressman or Senator but those can worthless too. Instead why not a test for common sense? Then again how many currently in office would be allowed to stay?

COMMON SENSE

There are times when I think that people have forgotten what the term common sense means. There are so many things that we take for granted in life and so many things that have such simple solutions if we would only use common sense. 

Gun control has been a good example. There are plenty of variations of these signs out there but the easiest one for me was this one:

I know the detractors of this sentiment will just start yelling about how these two items have nothing in common. But the fact of the matter is that they are nearly identical. Its not about which item is or is not illegal, its about the fact that by simply making an item illegal doesn't mean that people that abuse that item will not have access to it. This includes anything. Make drugs illegal and what happens? Drug abusers find drugs. Not only that they commit crimes to feed their drug dependency. Make guns illegal what happens? Call me crazy but while the law abiding citizens turn in their guns I would bet my life that criminals will be sitting at those collection sites laughing their butts off and getting license plate numbers from those folks so they know whose house to rip off. The bottom line is if you try and take something from people like this then they'll find a way to get it. 

The biggest problem of them all is the fact that there are too many do-gooders who think that they know what's best for people. The problem is what one person thinks is best may not necessarily be the same thing someone else thinks is best. One group loves guns, another hates them. Think back to the last elections and talk about grass. Several states legalized marijuana while many didn't. Some think it's beneficial while others think it leads to stronger drug dependency. Here again, one side thinks one way while the other thinks the opposite. The problem comes when one side forces its beliefs on the other.

So lets talk gun control. i don't own a gun and don't intend to. I do know that my right to own a gun is guaranteed by the Constitution. Its not about me forcing that into the Constitution, its already there. So why would anyone want to take that right away from me? Lets look at why they claim they want to. Many claim that they want to do so because of the recent shooting where children were killed. A great sentiment I'll agree. The problem is that the solution being given has absolutely nothing to do with the problem itself. The executive orders passed through by the President would have done nothing to prevent this shooting. The press has even admitted this though its one of those things where they kind of say it out of the side of their mouth while they yell and holler about how wonderful it is that these executive actions have taken place. Its the difference between front page news and page 5 news.

There's also some little shared facts that the news keeps forgetting to mention but they've gotten good at that. They always talk about the shootings but only those with a high body count. They forget to mention that those that have a high body count more often than not take place in gun restricted areas, that is areas where concealed weapons aren't allowed and no one has a gun on hand there to prevent someone from say shooting everyone there in the gun free zone. How about these stories that the press seems to find no reason to tell you:  
• A 1997 high school shooting in Pearl, Miss., was halted by the school's vice principal after he retrieved the Colt .45 he kept in his truck.
• A 1998 middle school shooting ended when a man living next door heard gunfire and apprehended the shooter with his shotgun.
• A 2002 terrorist attack at an Israeli school was quickly stopped by an armed teacher and a school guard.
• A 2002 law school shooting in Grundy, Va., came to an abrupt conclusion when students carrying firearms confronted the shooter.
• A 2007 mall shooting in Ogden, Utah, ended when an armed off-duty police officer intervened.
• A 2009 workplace shooting in Houston, Texas, was halted by two coworkers who carried concealed handguns.
• A 2012 church shooting in Aurora, Colo., was stopped by a member of the congregation carrying a gun.
• At the recent mall shooting in Portland, Ore., the gunman took his own life minutes after being confronted by a shopper carrying a concealed weapon.
2500 times last year alone legal gun owners stopped violent crime when confronted with it long before any police assistance ...


Notice the one thing these have in common. All of these shootings had low body counts. All of these shootings had someone there carrying a weapon that stopped the shooter. Unfortunately the press has decided not to let you know about that. 

They're too busy twisting and turning facts and figures to support their cause. It's not about the right thing to do, it's about a cause, an agenda. Piers Morgan talks about the figures for deaths by guns in Great Britain. To listen to him speak you'd think it was almost like Heaven. What he fails to mention is that GB has one of the highest rates of violent crime in the world, far above that of the US. Oops I'm sure it was a simple mistake. He also doesn't discuss how the majority of those being killed with guns here in the US are mostly being killed by criminals who have guns, not by legally lawful gun owners. To add insult to injury, many of those criminals who have guns and are killing people with them are career criminals that the same people who want to get rid of guns thinks they can rehabilitate and then turn lose not once but time and time again. 



So consider this from a common sense state of mind okay? 
You have a career criminal that you think you can rehabilitate. You give him an education, you feed and clothe him, you shelter him and you give him enough rights that the accessibility to illegal drugs and communications with those outside are enough he can make money while in prison. This criminal was in jail for robbery, assault, rape and maybe more. Perhaps he's not done them at the same time but over a period of time adding a new charge each time he gets sent back. But it feels good to try and help someone like this, to think that you can make them into something better with just a few years to do so even though they've had a life of doing violent crime. 

Now we have a law abiding citizen. He pays his taxes, he does what he's supposed to and he does everything he's told to do. He also owns a gun. Its registered and there's nothing illegal about it. So those in charge think that this man is a high risk to use that same gun to injure or kill someone not committing a crime and they decide he can't keep the gun. They want to take it away from him. Keep in mind he's never done anything threatening with that gun and it's always kept in his house except for target practice. 

Our friend the criminal gets out of jail and immediately hooks  back up with his gang of friends, many of which are ex-cons as well. Yes, he's not supposed to hang around with them but hey, these have always been his pals! He's been rehabilitated but at the same time when a friend needs you to back them up on a job you just want to be a buddy. So he gets a gun, mind you an unregistered and illegal gun, and goes along. 

So what if the job he goes along on is to burglarize the home of Mr. Legal-law-abiding-citizen? What if while burglarizing that home he shoots the man who now has no way of defending himself because he obeys the law and turned in his gun while the criminal who isn't even supposed to be associating with these other criminals has an illegal gun and uses it to kill Mr. Legal? 

Common sense will tell you that gun owners are not the problem. Automatic weapons aren't the problem either. The people with the problems, these mentally ill folks that the media wants to turn into celebrities by talking about them non-stop are the problem. Why don't those in power do something to weed out these people? Why not spend the money and effort to do something about those with mental health issues rather than to harrass people who obey the law and don't have those problems?

One simple answer: It's not about common sense. It's about looking good in front of a camera. It's about appearing to be doing something about the problem rather than actually doing something. It's about making yourself feel good rather than actually doing something good. It's all about sound bites and doing what makes you feel good rather than accomplishing something with any meaning friends. Consider that the next time you vote.   

AREN'T POLITICIANS SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT THEIR CONSTITUENTS?

I've been reading all sorts of posts on Facebook and reading news stories about this whole gun control issue and it stuns me. What is so surprising is that instead of actually confronting the issues that cause the problems associated with the attacks that have occurred over time we continue to attack inanimate objects as if they cause the problems rather than the problems people have that cause these shooters to go nuts.

There have been tons of comparisons of the number of deaths caused by doctors per capita versus guns. When those statistics, or others are brought up we're told it's not the same. Well...actually...yeah, it is the same. If all you're talking about is death cause by something or someone then yes, it is the same.

I've watched the media out there doing there best to blame everything under the sun on guns as well. I'm surprised that we haven't heard that gun oil is the leading cause of cancer. They've taken their stand on the issue and don't intend to shed any real light on the subject, just their viewpoint which is we need to get rid of guns. Amazingly enough all the stories about deaths by crazed shooters that make the news are those where a large number of victims occur. The most surprising thing about this though, which of course they neglect to tell you, is that the majority of these take place in gun free zones, areas where people aren't allowed to carry guns. On the other hand in areas that AREN'T gun free zones where crazed lunatics open fire, the body count is incredibly small, more often than not just one or two people, because someone there was carrying a gun and stopped the lunatic. Notice I said lunatic and not the gun. I'll say it again, the gun killed no one. I also want you to pay strict attention to what i said. When the body count is low due to someone carrying a gun stopping the shooter, the news refuses to cover that story. When a shooter kills many because no one was there to stop them they're all over it. Selective reporting anyone?

They do the same thing with statistics. The easiest way to explain it is to provide a link here to ebaumsworld. Normally they're just funny or weird items but this guy provides some interesting thoughts about how the media twists the figures the way they want them to appear.

 http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/83000726/

Wouldn't it be nice if people would just tell the truth? Wouldn't it be even better if rather than try to push an agenda or give aid and comfort to a select political side that the people behind the news would simply state the facts? I'm not sure I've ever seen that in my lifetime. I'm almost certain it happened with Walter Cronkite before he went off about the Vietnam War. The worst thing now is that every journalist wants to be Woodward and Bernstein, the two reporters who broke the Nixon/Watergate story. They all want to be stars. They all want the headlines to include their names for breaking the story. Rather than report the actual news, they want to become celebrities. This just makes the news that much more fabricated. It's why their viewership has declined and yet they won't admit it.

So gun control? If you trusted the news people you'd think there were no laws in place already. There are plenty of laws already on the books. Taking guns out of the hands of lawful owners won't solve the problem. It will give a big assist to criminals who don't carry lawful firearms but who are the first to have illegal weapons on hand. 

i don't own a gun and have never even fired one. That's not to say the day might come when I choose to buy one. I think I'll wait until I'm sure my wife has no idea where it is so she doesn't use it on me first. The thing is if I chose to protect myself by owning one I have that right as guaranteed by the Constitution. Scarier than not owning a gun is thinking about what Biden has said about using an executive order to take them out of everyone's hands. All these executive orders just make me wonder how the Democrats would feel if a Republican were in office doing these same things? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

MISSING OLD MUSIC

I can't believe it's been that long since I posted here or at Digital Views! This being sick stuff sucks! Finally feeling good enough to do a few things. It seemed like every time I felt that way while sick it just made me sick all over again. Yesterday (1-5-13) was the first time I'd actually left the house (other than to go to Stat Care) since Christmas! It felt good to get some fresh air cold though it was.

I went to see JACK REACHER. If you haven't seen it then by all means go. It was a treat. Plenty of action and Tom Cruise may have a new franchise on his hands to work on between MISSION IMPOSSIBLE features. Two interesting items about the movie. The first is that the bad guy in the film, the Russian, is played by Werner Herzog. Most of you won't know him but he's a film director that made some highly popular foreign films in the 80s like FITZCARALLDO and I think he even did NOSFERATU, both with Klaus Kinski. The other is a cameo in the film. When Reacher is being released from jail the desk sergeant is Lee Child, the author of the Reacher books. Just some tidbits there.

While I was getting ready to go out yesterday I turned on GUITAR CENTER SESSIONS with Joe Walsh as their guest. It was great to see Walsh cleaned up and legible after the many years he spent wasted or drunk and he even talked about that. One thing he discussed that I hadn't thought about out loud but realized I'd been thinking about for some time was the effects of digital involvement in music. He said that it had destroyed record stores, destroyed radio and was harming music. As he described it music was layered one piece on top of another with no musicians ever having to even see one another when making a song, no interaction between them. He also said that in recording this way they could go back and take out any imperfections making it perfect in every way and in so doing you lost the spontaneity of recording live. In his words you lost some of those mistakes which led to some of the greatest things in music.

As I listened to him I thought he hit the nail on the head. I started thinking about the music kids listen to today and while good I realized that I didn't find a lot of lasting things there. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe there will be tunes there that they will find themselves singing 20-30 years down the road. I just feel like performers like Rhianna and Katy Perry and Justin Bieber are turning out music that is toss away stuff. While it may top the charts now I don't see people listening to this music down the road. It's become a consumable product that gets eaten and spit out with speed.

That made me think of the music I listened to long ago. I still listen to it now and some kids are even discovering how great some of it was. And those bands that I used to listen to were getting their inspiration from the musicians that came before them. Some of the new bands/performers do the same but they only go back to the past 3 years for inspiration. Groups like The Yardbirds, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Who all went back years before that to the original blues musicians from the deep south. The majority of the bands from the 60s and 70s had this as their influence and then they influenced each other. Only disco was different (and I love disco too so no I'm not bashing it). 

This in turn made me go back and pull out some music that I hadn't listened to in some time. Black Oak Arkansas, Foghat, 30 Special and more rock out and are still great to listen to. The thing about these bands was the simplicity of instrumentation they used yet the sound they got from those few instruments. Think about the number of musicians on a stage with these new performers not to mention the dancers they have with them. It's like an army these days. When the bands we listened to were performing you had maybe 2 guitarists, a bass player, a drummer, a singer and once in a while a keyboard player. That's 6 people tops. And the sound they got was phenomenal. I went back and listened to Mountain, granted not my most favorite band, but the song "Mississippi Queen" still kicks butt. And that was maybe just 4 members playing! 

I know some will say that this sort of rock music is still out there but I don't see it getting the attention that this other stuff does. And these days it seems people are more focused on what they do when off stage than when they are on stage. I think it's time bands made a come back. I know a few are like The Black Keys, but how about some more? Anyone else think this way? I hope so. Feel free to leave comments.