God Punishes Us With What We Can't Imagine...

"It's alive! Alive!" Mary Shelley Dreams

Sometimes it takes a while for things to sink in. For example, during the Cold War Era there was a policy of MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction - that kept things in check. No one would start a war - no rational person, that is - if there was assurance that they themselves would be destroyed.

It was a rational approach.

In fact, it was an island of reason within the great blue sea of insanity.

Same thing with guns.

It used to said, and probably still is by the dim, that, "Guns don't kill people. People kill people."
And the dim bulb would say this and leave us all amazed at the irony of it all.

However, I hold that Guns actually do kill people.
During the past 20 years as gun ownership grew exponentially, I thought that such a vast "population" of weapons would lead to an age where the statistics of deadly shootings began to also exponentially increase.

Ecce arma!  Behold the weapons!

With nuclear weapons, there was an incredible amount of training that armies and navies had to go through to make things safe, to prevent accidents.
With guns? There is no incredible amount of training. There is barely any training. I mean, a couple of years ago a baby shot its mother dead in a Walmart, using a gun in the mother's purse.

Did this baby shoot? No, the gun did. The baby could not have the intention. The gun did.
Oh, it was an accident...... !!??
Really. An accident.
It was an accident that there was a fully loaded hand gun in a mother's purse, and that purse was lying on top of a Walmart shopping cart, and the baby grabbed it. An accident.
The gun did not have intention, but it was an integral part of an intentional landscape...

The gun was a necessary adjunct and part of the landscape. The gun was imbued with the faith of being-safe and being-secure. The gun, that was part of the promise to secure that young mother and to secure that young baby, turned on them in a tragic way.

That was the irony: the things of incredible violence into which we place our faith and our lives turn against us for no good reason that we can understand. We are left dumb and struck and we cannot explain the turn of events.

It reminds me of a fable. Perhaps "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" wherein a inanimate, unliving object is given life! The Frankenstein fable, is it not? "It's alive! Alive!" yelled Colin Clive as Victor Frankenstein yelled in James Whale's movie.

That which we considered dead is suddenly alive.
We are finding out that Guns are a Power in the World and at a high enough concentration, Guns - like the mythical Skynet of the film Terminator - begin to act as if they were already independent of mankind. At a critical concentration, independent and baneful artificial intelligence precipitates out of the idolatrous mix of dreams and fears of those who trust in violence.

Guns only need our fingers on the trigger. Everything else they can handle.

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ps. The title is a quote from Stephen King's Duma Key.

Big Thumbs Up, Gun Dudes !

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/6/benjamin-tiller-11-found-guilty-killing-8-year-old/

An 11-year-old Tennessee boy will spend the rest of his childhood in jail after a judge found him guilty of murdering an 8-year-old girl during an argument over the girl’s puppy.

Benjamin Tiller was found guilty Monday of first degree murder for the October death of McKayla Dyer.

Police said the boy used his father’s shotgun to kill his neighbor after the girl refused to let him play with her new puppy, a local ABC affiliate reported...

I read this story first in ParisMatch, which account ends with

L’arme appartenait au père du petit garçon. Elle avait été acquise de façon légale.

The weapon belonged to the father of the young boy. It had been legally acquired.

 McKayla Dyer, 8 years old; an acceptable statistic in our society

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/4/maryland-gun-control-law-infringes-second-amendmen/

A federal appeals court challenged the legality of Maryland’s assault weapon and high-capacity magazine ban on Thursday, saying the law infringes on the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, in a 2-1 ruling, ordered the original district judge to use stricter constitutional standards in reconsidering an earlier decision that upheld the ban.

“In our view, Maryland law implicates the core protection of the Second Amendment,” Chief Judge William B. Traxler Jr. wrote in the majority opinion. He added that the law “significantly burdens the exercise of the right to arm oneself at home.”

SEE ALSO: D.C. gun law casts pall over Md. resident five years after plea deal

Maryland’s ban was enacted in 2013 in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. It prohibits the sale or ownership of 45 types of military-style rifles, and of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

Proponents of the law, including Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh, said most mass violence incidents have involved military-style weaponry and high-capacity magazines, and such weapons are not necessary for self-defense...

I believe that were I a judge, I would interpret the Right to Bear Arms to extend to atomic weapons and beyond. Then a foolish society would find its peril quickly, instead of letting itself die slowly.

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The Long Lent Of Tamir Rice.

If even police who are trained - we assume - in the use of deadly force and are trained in using such force in life-threatening situations...
If even the police and military organizations err in the use of deadly force, what may we expect from our gun carrying fellow citizens who have not undergone such training, and have been nurtured on fear and the distortions of politicians?

I do not see how the policemen can be indicted since they were informed that they were responding to an "active shooter" situation.
That misinformation explains a good deal.

In a Weaponized Society, there must be a set of procedures about how to go about living with the potential of deadly force every day. It is not merely the police gun training, but also the information which they are provided, and how it is packaged and presented to them.
And the same is true of all the weapon-carrying populace.

We have allowed ourselves to be frightened and pushed into a Weaponized Life. It is hard to let loose of our dreams of Armageddon, Dystopia, and Big Brother. Therefore, let us establish the ground rules of this new carnage carnival, the holiday which starts on the Ash Wednesday of Tamir Rice and other lives which no longer matter in the Weapon Era...

Prepare us, O, Lord, for the Cross of Guns!

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The Shatila And Sabra Of South Carolina

I found this very interesting.

DOWNTREND.com
Obama Uses SC Church Shooting To Call For More Gun Control

Brian Anderson June 18, 2015
http://downtrend.com/71superb/obama-uses-sc-church-shooting-to-call-for-more-gun-control

Whenever there is a mass shooting, like the one in South Carolina yesterday, it’s a guarantee that liberals will exploit the bodies of the dead to push their unconstitutional gun control agenda. Surprise surprise, President Obama jumped immediately on this to call for, as far as I can tell, a total ban on private gun ownership.

First, let’s understand the gun killer Dylan Roof used and how he got it. According to Roof’s uncle, Dylan was given a .45 caliber automatic handgun for his 21st birthday by his father. Roof was not a convicted felon, nor was he judged to be mentally incompetent. He was of age and not banned from gun ownership. The gun was purchased legally and transferred legally to him.

With that in mind, Obama said this, as reported by The Hill:

“Now is a time for mourning and for healing, but let’s be clear: at some point, we as a country we will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence doesn’t happen in other advanced countries,” Obama said.

Joined by Vice President Biden, Obama cited the Charleston shooting as another example of innocent people being killed “because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun.”

“It doesn’t happen in other places with this kind of frequency,” he said. “It is in our power to do something about it.”

Okay Mr. President, I’ll bite. What law would have stopped Dylan Roof from getting his hands on the gun he used to kill 9 people in Charleston? Until he pulled that trigger, he was a 21-year old man with no felony convictions and no mental health issues.

When Obama says this shooting shows that we need to do something to stop an incident like this from happening, what he’s really saying is he wants laws that prevent law-abiding adults of sound mind from purchasing and possessing firearms. There’s no other way to look at what the President said because the only law that would have stopped Roof from getting the gun he used would be one that bans legal gun ownership.

When Obama says this shooting shows that we need to do something to stop an incident like this from happening, what he’s really saying is he wants laws that prevent law-abiding adults of sound mind from purchasing and possessing firearms. There’s no other way to look at what the President said because the only law that would have stopped Roof from getting the gun he used would be one that bans legal gun ownership.

Don’t get me wrong. Roof is a complete piece of sh*t and I hope he gets the death penalty. I’m not trying to defend him, I’m just pointing out that lax gun laws didn’t put the .45 in his hands. He snapped and there’s no way you can predict that from happening. The only way you can legislate that from happening is to ban and confiscate all firearms.

In addition, it is illegal to murder people. It is illegal to fire at random worshipers in a church. If Roof was unwilling to abide by those laws, why does Obama, and all liberals, think that more laws would have stopped his rampage?

It should also be noted that the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, where the massacre took place, was a gun-free zone. It is illegal to carry a gun, concealed or open, in a church in South Carolina without explicit permission from the pastor. While libs look for connections between mass shootings in this country, they may want to notice how frequently they occur in places where there are lots of disarmed and defenseless victims.

No legislation could have stopped Dylan Roof from doing what he did. Well, that’s not entirely true. If people were allowed their 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms, an armed member of the church could have stopped him or at least mitigated the devastation.

The point that is missed is that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. The author points out that mass shootings occur frequently in places where there are lots of disarmed and defenseless victims. Does that mean that he considers the USA to be on the same plane as the killing fields of Cambodia, the slaughter fields of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or the refugee camps of Shatila and Sabra?

Imagine:  all sorts of weaponry should be freely and openly carried  - just like the Weapons Shops of Isher by A. E. vanVogt  -  because our society is less secure than a refugee camp on the border of a battle zone.
If we agree with this premise, we condemn our society in all its aspects, not just the ones we are politically in love with, but everything. We consider our society to always be on the verge of chaos and incapable of providing the means for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

In short, we have a microcosm of the State of Constant War in the world: the state of constant warfare in our country's social structure.

And the Greek philosopher Heracleitos is correct that Strife and Eris is the father of all...

And maybe it's true...

And maybe Christianity and its Sermon on the Mount are just cotton candy for the wide-eyed simpletons we used to be...

The afflictions are real, and the most menacing are the spiritual ones we suffer from.


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Chickens Coming Home To Roost

Just as Republican governors who cut taxes with the same fervor that Krazy Kaplan sells fireworks on the Illinois-Indiana state line have awakened from the tax bombardment to find that the state coffers are empty, so also we are finding out that letting everyone openly carry a gun is dangerous to life and limb.

Raw Story
Iowa open-carry nut gunned down mall worker who filed sexual harassment complaints against him
Tom Boggioni 14 Jun 2015 at 16:04 ET 
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/06/iowa-open-carry-nut-gunned-down-mall-worker-who-filed-sexual-harassment-complaints-against-him/

An Iowa mall cop — with a Facebook account loaded with open-carry and right-wing memes and photos of multiple weapons — is under arrest for shooting and killing a fellow mall worker because she filed sexual harassment complaints against him.

According to The Gazette, Alex Kozak was taken into custody after shooting 20-year-old Andrea Farrington three times in the back while she was at work at the Iowa Children’s Museum in the Coral Ridge Mall in Coralville, Iowa.

Police say that the 22-year-old Kozak left the mall and went to his home and retrieved a 9mm Glock handgun before retuning and shooting Farrington late Friday night..

KCJJ reports that a cousin of Farrington’s said that Kozak had been harassing the victim for at least six weeks and that she had complained to his superiors about unwanted advances he had made toward her. A later report stated that Kozak was fired from his job before the shooting took place.

“They both worked at the Coral Ridge Mall and knew each other through the Coral Ridge Mall,” Johnson County Attorney Janet Lyness said. Kozak had worked at the mall since 2014.

After shooting Farrington, Kozak fled the mall in his car but was later pulled over without incident.

Kozak — who is currently being held on $10 million bail — is married to Kellie Kozak, who recently posted pictures on her Facebook page of a visit to Costco where her husband can be seen carrying a sidearm. According to his father-in-law, Kozak didn’t always carry a weapon, saying, “If circumstances were that it’d be best not to have a weapon present, he didn’t have a problem with that.”

Did anyone doubt that this would happen?
Madmen passing laws to govern those with ungovernable impulses leads to disaster.
All the fairy tales of the reign of peace brought about by good and uprighteous citizens carrying guns everywhere and shooting down malefactors, crooks, and criminals at every turn are fevered creations of long nights and too much beer.

No law-abiding and pistol-packing good citizen stepped forward and shot Mr. Kozak, did they?
It is all the dreams of madmen and the stuff of Greek tragedies... a perverse and changed Oedipus Rex already having been played out at Christmas time, 2014, when the 2 year old Oedipus shot and killed poor Jocasta

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Fast And Furious Democracy

Some people have called for the abolition of the US Senate, saying that it is grossly unfair in that Rhode Island has 2 Senators while California with millions more people has but 2 Senators also.

Then there is the quadrennial question of the Electoral College's existence, and many say that ittoo be abolished and the President elected by direct vote of the people.

However, sometimes democracy can be too abrupt. Recall the Athenians who were miffed at the inhabitants of Mytilene for some transgression or another, and they sent off a ship and troops to kill all the male citizens ofMytilene.
A few days later when spirits had returned to normal temperatures, they were aghast at what they had done, and sent another ship to countermand the first mortal order.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mytilenian_Debate

The Athenian assembly ... hastily sentenced all of the male citizens of Mytilene to death, while the women and children would be sold into slavery. According to Thucydides, after the decision was made a trireme was dispatched to Mytilene to carry out the orders...


The next day, the Athenians realized the unprecedented brutality of their actions and some became hesitant about the hurried decision to kill and enslave the citizens of Mytilene. A second debate, which Thucydides called the Mytilenian Debate, took place in order to reassess the course of action that should be taken. The debate consisted of varying opinions, the first of which was presented by Cleon of Athens. Cleon ... spoke to defend the previous decision against doubts and to assert that the guilty party got the punishment they deserved. Cleon's reputation was violent and ruthless. Indeed Thucydides describes him as "the most violent man in Athens."

Cleon began by questioning the worth of a democracy: “Personally I have had occasion often enough already to observe that a democracy is incapable of governing others, and I am all the more convinced of this when I see how you are now changing your minds about the Mytilenians.”
He also implied the Athenians have become jaded by sophist oratory and questioned the worth of free speech. He described the Athenians as “victims of their own pleasure in listening, and are more like an audience sitting at the feet of a professional lecturer than a parliament discussing matters of state. He finishes his speech by urging the populace to not "be traitors to your own selves."

After Cleon's speech, Diodotus spoke in defense of his previous opposition to the death sentence. He stated that "haste and anger are... the two greatest obstacles to wise counsel...."

 Diodotus argued the issue was not a question of Mytilene's guilt, and whether Athens should seek vengeance; rather it was a question of what is in Athens' best interest.Citing one of Cleon's main arguments for his position, Diodotus questioned whether the death penalty is really a means of deterrence from revolt or just the opposite.

He finished by asking Athenians to fundamentally question what is right and just and look to moderation rather than aggressive punishment. Instead, he urged the Athenians to spare the Mytilenians in an effort to create an alliance.

Following Diodotus’ speech, the assembly recast their votes. Diodotus’ rational argument prevailed and managed to persuade the assembly not to massacre the Mytilenians. The Athenians, who initially ardently supported the total annihilation of the Mytilenians, now found themselves hesitant. As a result, the votes, which were originally unanimous, were narrowly passed in favor of Diodotus.

 Of course, like all good Greek tragedies, it was too late.

However, there is a true democracy all about us in the form of weapons and guns. There is an outlet for anger, and it is quick enough that there will not be time for a second debate. Let us kill all that offend us, and let God sort out the dead.

The morals of weapons has so far eluded us.
We are far beyond the time when everyone used guns in rural settings, and children hunted with their elders.
We are in a different place.


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notes on the postcard pictured:

Although the city name everywhere is writ "Mytilene" which is the English rendition of   Μυτιλήνη , which would be something like "Moo-ti-lay'-nay", the postcard has " Μιτυλήνη" instead:  "Mitulene".
Interesting.

Extra! Shooting Of Mother By Toddler Called "Terrible Incident"

Way To Go, Toddler !

I reproduce the Washington Post story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/12/31/the-inside-story-of-how-an-idaho-toddler-shot-his-mom-at-wal-mart/

The inside story of how an Idaho toddler shot his mom at Wal-Mart
By Terrence McCoy December 31, 2014
Veronica Rutledge and her husband loved everything about guns. They practiced at shooting ranges. They hunted. And both of them, relatives and friends say, had permits to carry concealed firearms. Veronica typically left her Blackfoot, Idaho, home with her gun nestled at her side. So on Christmas morning last week, her husband gave her a present he hoped would make her life more comfortable: a purse with a special pocket for a concealed weapon.

The day after Christmas, she took her new gift with her on a trip with her husband and her 2-year-old son. They headed hundreds of miles north to the end of a country road where Terry Rutledge, her husband’s father, lived. The father-in-law learned of the new purse.

“It was designed for that purpose — to carry a concealed firearm,” Rutledge told The Washington Post late Tuesday night. “And you had to unzip a compartment to find the handgun.

On Tuesday morning, that was exactly what Veronica Rutledge’s son did — with the most tragic of outcomes. Veronica, 29, arrived at a nearby Wal-Mart in Hayden with her three nieces and son, her gun “zippered closed” inside her new purse, her father-in-law said. Then, in the back of the store, near the electronics section, the purse was left unattended for a moment.

“An inquisitive 2-year-old boy reached into the purse, unzipped the compartment, found the gun and shot his mother in the head,” Rutledge said. “It’s a terrible, terrible incident.”

The aftermath has been crushing, he said. His son went to the Wal-Mart to collect his nieces and son, and no one now is sure what to say to the boy, who is not doing well.

“My son is terrible,” Rutledge said. “He has a 2-year-old boy right now who doesn’t know where his mom is and he’ll have to explain why his mom isn’t coming home. And then, later on his life, as he questions it more, he’ll again have to explain what happened, so we’ll have to relive this several times over.”

Rutledge isn’t just sad — he’s angry. Not at his grandson. Nor at his dead daughter-in-law, “who didn’t have a malicious fiber in her body,” he said. He’s angry at the observers already using the accident as an excuse to grandstand on gun rights.

“They are painting Veronica as irresponsible, and that is not the case,” he said. “… I brought my son up around guns, and he has extensive experience shooting it. And Veronica had had hand gun classes; they’re both licensed to carry, and this wasn’t just some purse she had thrown her gun into.”

The path Veronica Rutledge charted before her death, friends and family say, was one of academics and small-town, country living. “Hunting, being outdoors and being with her son” was what made her happiest, her friend Rhonda Ellis told The Post. She was raised in northeast Idaho and always excelled at school, former high school classmate Kathleen Phelps said, recalling her as “extremely smart. … valedictorian of our class, very motivated and the smartest person I know. … Getting good grades was always very important to her.”

She went on to graduate in 2010 from the University of Idaho with a chemistry degree, according to a commencement program. From there, she got a job at Battelle’s Idaho National Laboratory and published several articles, one of which analyzed a method to absorb toxic waste discharged by burning nuclear fuel.

While away from the lab, she and her husband, whom she married in 2009, spent time shooting guns. “She was just as comfortable at a camp ground or a gun range as she was in a classroom,” close friend Sheri Sandow said in an interview. On Facebook, she showed an interest in the outdoors and the National Rifle Association, and followed Guns.com, a publication that reports on gun life.

“They carried one every day of their lives, and they shot extensively,” Rutledge said. “They loved it. Odd as it may sound, we are gun people.”

A lot of people in Idaho are. Earlier this year, the state legislature passed a bill that allows people to carry concealed guns onto state university campuses. And more than 85,000 people — 7 percent of the population — are licensed to carry concealed weapons, according to the Crime Prevention Research Center.

So many locals didn’t discern anything odd with 29-year-old woman carrying a loaded gun into a Wal-Mart during the holiday season. Stu Miller, a spokesman for the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office, told the New York Times that it didn’t strike him as anything out of the ordinary. “It’s pretty common around here,” he said. “A lot of people carry loaded guns.”

Sandow told The Post she often sees people with a gun cradled at their side. “In Idaho, we don’t have to worry about a lot of crime and things like that,” she said. “And to see someone with a gun isn’t bizarre. [Veronica] wasn’t carrying a gun because she felt unsafe. She was carrying a gun because she was raised around guns. This was just a horrible accident.”

Of course it was an accident.
The question is how many accidents shall we allow to be acceptable?

The imagined threats to society are so great that the sale of guns and ammo sky-rocketed from 2008 to the present.
We are paying the price for our imagination.

How stupid we are is exemplified by our  obsessional fears; we keep thinking the past will repeat, because the past is the only thing we can conceptualize. The past is easy for our dullard minds, because it has already been done and we only have to be Monday morning fear-mongering quarterbacks.

The coming destruction will be ourselves. We shall implode and self-destruct. Not some financial order, not some region of the world.
We. Ourselves. We are going insane, and we shall arrive at the end of the road and the fulfillment of our quest we have painted with apocalyptical colors.

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Will They Call It ObamaGun?

John Calhoun, Defender Of States' Rights

NRA seeks universal gun law at national meeting
Associated Press
By CHARLES D. WILSON 12 hours ago
http://news.yahoo.com/nra-seeks-universal-gun-law-national-meeting-164012076.html

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — 

With concealed weapons now legal in all 50 states, the National Rifle Association's focus at this week's annual meeting is less about enacting additional state protections than on making sure the permits already issued still apply when the gun owners travel across the country.

The nation's largest gun-rights group, which officially opens its meeting of about 70,000 people Friday in Indianapolis, wants Congress to require that concealed weapons permits issued in one state be recognized everywhere, even when the local requirements differ. Advocates say the effort would eliminate a patchwork of state-specific regulations that lead to carriers unwittingly violating the law when traveling.

"Right now it takes some legal research to find out where you are or are not legal depending on where you are," said Guy Relford, an attorney who has sued communities for violating an Indiana law that bars local gun regulation. "I don't think that's right."

Opponents fear the measure would allow more lenient gun regulations to trump stricter ones when permit holders travel across state lines.

"It's a race to the bottom," said Brian Malte, senior national policy director for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "It's taking the lowest standards."

The push for reciprocity comes as the gun rights lobby is arguably stronger than ever before, with more than 5 million dues-paying members.

The NRA has successfully defeated numerous gun-control efforts in recent years, even after the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. With midterm elections looming, the organization's legislative wish list likely will be somewhat more modest than usual this year.

The "reciprocity" effort on state concealed carry laws has strong support from Senate Republicans but narrowly missed being amended into last year's proposed expansion of gun sale background checks. Still, it faces long odds in Washington because Democrats control the Senate and White House...

Incredibly, I see the NRA seeking to intrude into areas where the individual States have jurisdiction. This is a States' Rights issue, and we see the NRA wishing to create a Federal regulation that overrides the laws of individual States.
The NRA assumes that each State does not know what is best for its own "well regulated militia".

The NRA realizes that it can burden more people with its views if it enlists the Federal government to oppress us.

***

Georgia Governor Signs 'Unprecedented' Gun Rights Bill
The Huffington Post | by Paige Lavender

Posted: 04/23/2014 1:14 pm EDT Updated: 04/23/2014 8:59 pm EDT
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/23/georgia-gun-bill_n_5199630.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R) signed a sweeping gun rights bill on Wednesday.

House Bill 60, also known as the Safe Carry Protection Act, will allow licensed gun owners to carry their firearms into public places, including bars, nightclubs, schools, churches and government buildings.

“People who follow the rules can protect themselves and their families from people who don’t follow the rules,” Deal said, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “The Second Amendment should never be an afterthought. It should reside at the forefronts of our minds.”

The National Rifle Association has praised the bill as "the most comprehensive pro-gun reform legislation introduced in recent state history" and called it a “historic victory for the Second Amendment.” Americans for Responsible Solutions, a gun control organization started by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), fought to defeat the bill, calling it "the most extreme gun bill in America."

One hopes that people who carry guns into church "follow the rules" better than most people "follow the rules" when it come to traffic rules - where they often cheat a little on strictness... not coming to a full stop at a Stop sign, or speeding up to get through a yellow traffic light turning red.

This extreme law is a good sign, for it has allowed the anarchists to take over and they will quickly and thoroughly make a mess of things. The ensuing mess will include a number of fatalities, so the people of Georgia should start thinking about holding their political leaders accountable for murder, or at least manslaughter.
Just sit back and watch them.

It is as predictable as discovering that a Nevada rancher and his gun toting allies are racists.

***

"The laws are already there," said Allen Rumble, a Carmel, Ind., financial consultant with lifetime NRA membership. "Criminals don't follow rules."

The trouble is that most law-abiding citizens do not follow rules, either.  When it comes to guns, there will be a lot of bending of the rules. I mean, its been years that everyone has known how dangerous it is to mix guns in the house with ease of access and kids under 10 years old, yet kids shoot kids every week.

If you rely upon the following of enlightened and sublime ethical standards of behavior to regulate the use of weapons, you are an arrant fool.

Weaponized Society has as it most basic premise Compulsion - a Compulsion which seeks to compel that which we find burdensome. But we find any countrywide intrusive laws burdensome, and we seek ways to evade and avoid.
Hence, more compulsion. And the more compulsion, the more evasion. And so on.
The whole vicious circle is so bizarre that I understand why the people in Georgia seek salvation in weaponry everywhere.

The Weapon is a potent Totem, and a strong medicine.... medicine in the sense Delbert Grady uses the word in The Shining.

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Why A Weaponized Society?

It has a long history, but part of the history of guns is a function of the over-reaching of governments, such as our own governmental units - federal, state, and local  -  have shown:

The Sultans of SWAT
http://fatherdaughtertalk.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-sultans-of-swat.html

 A small organic farm in Arlington, Texas, was the target of a massive police action last week that included aerial surveillance, a SWAT raid and a 10-hour search.

Members of the local police raiding party had a search warrant for marijuana plants, which they failed to find at the Garden of Eden farm. But farm owners and residents who live on the property told a Dallas-Ft. Worth NBC station that the real reason for the law enforcement exercise appears to have been code enforcement. The police seized "17 blackberry bushes, 15 okra plants, 14 tomatillo plants ... native grasses and sunflowers," after holding residents inside at gunpoint for at least a half-hour, property owner Shellie Smith said in a statement. The raid lasted about 10 hours, she said...

 Such over-reaching is part and parcel of the NSA's programs of surveillance.

The perceived need for guns is a result of a long, complex history of many players. Unfortunately, our own government is far from being free from the indictment of infringement against the rights of the people.

Not until all players in a society can be trusted may guns be abolished.

That is not going to happen any time soon.

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Colorado Recall

Two state senators in Colorado have been recalled, due to their support of gun control regulations.

I think this is a high point for the NRA, but it is the high point, and it will be downhill from now on for them. The reason for this is the fact that we are recognizing that - for better or ill - we are a weaponized society, and that is pretty much our fate, given our history and customs of long standing.

Therefore, we will fully accept our position as such, and we shall have to create a lawful weaponized society which does not lapse too often into anarchy and disaster.

The NRA, with its history and customs, is not suited for that next step.
Its fight is over.

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News From Russia... and Insights Into NRA

http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/bre92g0cu-us-russia-usa-defence/
 
Russian lawmaker not reassured by U.S. missile defense plan 

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MOSCOW, Mar. 17, 2013 (Reuters) — A change in the United States plans for an anti-missile shield in Europe will not prompt Russia to drop its opposition to the system, a senior lawmaker allied to President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday.

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U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Friday the Pentagon would add 14 new anti-missile interceptors in Alaska, among others, after North Korea had threatened a preemptive nuclear strike against the United States.
To free up funds for that, U.S. officials said they were forgoing development of a new interceptor that would have been deployed in central eastern Europe and has been a focus of Russia's concern that the shield would weaken its nuclear deterrent.
But Alexei Pushkov, head of the foreign committee in the Russian parliament's lower house, the State Duma, said the change would not dispel Moscow's concerns about the missile shield the United States and NATO are developing in Europe.

The missile defense shield is to protect against Iran and North Korea.
I have no idea how effective this shield is. If it is not 100%, there will be some hurt somewhere.

Nevertheless, what is there about this story that reminds one of Wayne LaPierre and the NRA? Perhaps the business of having armed guards everywhere... or missile defense systems.

Since we cannot disarm - whether guns or atomic warheads - we actually need armed guards, whether they be armed security personnel or anti-missile missiles. 
The very same logic that applies to nuclear weapons applies to hand weapons.

This is one reason why I have shut up on guns: the fact that Wayne LaPierre was quite right, logically...
If a society cannot disarm and allows the great majority of people to have arms and to carry them concealed and unconcealed, the only possible way to protect oneself is to also have a weapon. In an atomic world, we need Mutually Assured Destruction, in the class room, armed teachers.

At least Mr. LaPierre realizes what we have created. There is no quick way to undo the Gun-Toting nature of the USA; it will endure for generations.

And we are in danger of slipping into nuclear hell, also.
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Paintings On Velvet: Idiots Playing Poker

"I see the 20 billion and raise another 10 billion!"

My ethics teacher in grade 4, Soeur Sourire, had a way with words. She would say that busy weapons are the devil's workshop. Idle weapons make happy people. And this was all a transform on "idle hands...etc.". At the time, we used to look at each other in amazement, not sure whether to laugh or go blind. So we smiled. And this was our way of being mysterious right back at Sister "Smile".

Now getting right into Weaponry, the great minds in Washington are giving $20 billion worth to various countries around the Persian Gulf- to guard against Iran-and $30 billion to Israel to guard against the guys they've just given the $20 billion weaponry to. All clear? The best and brightest have philosophical reasons why no money can be spent here on families and health care and what have you. However, they can spend $ 20 billion dollars to provide weapons to Middle Eastern states. Why? To defend against the super power Iran. Yes, Iran has become so powerful that it is even more powerful than the old USSR ever dreamed of being. So more weapons for the Middle East. And the supporters of the Israel War Faction will see to it that they receive more than enough to counter balance.

Nice game of chess. Thank goodness we have such brilliant minds on our side. In case you haven't noticed so far, we are now spending $20 billion on this deal which will supply arms to Sunni Islam governments. The purpose is to defend them against the Shi'a Islam Iran. I do not think it takes the intellect of a governor of Texas to see the obvious: that we wish Islam to engage in a fratricidal war within its own home.
It is Iraq written large. And we do not bat an eyelash. It does not even matter that it is apparent to the government of Iraq, a Shi'a majority government. It is apparent that we do not trust Shi'a. It is apparent we wish a civil war to continue, but even on a larger scale, a region wide Sunni vs. Shi'a blood bath. If the government of Iraq feels that no matter what happens now in Iraq, the US will fund civil war through out the world of Islam, why not just call out all the Shi'a militia right now?! (To me, it seems as if Moqtada As-Sadr is the one intelligent person now in this whole mess. )

Furthermore, what is the record of dependability of these weapons? You can look into how often things go wrong. The chances of large scale mistakes eventuating in catasrophes are escalating exponentially. These weapons are not 100% sure. There is still a fog of war, even in a period of no war. There is a large literature on glitches in these highly technical systems. It is getting easier and easier to destroy people, if not the entire world. This is a government for the history books!

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