Rand Paul Calls Benghazi ‘worst tragedy since 9/11’

Well I’m back. After giving my brain a rest for a few weeks I could no longer hold in my frustration over the climate of American politics. With gun control debates in full swing and the media humping every opportunity to cover a school shooting I just needed to step away from the news and relax, just kind of clear my head for a bit.

But today I came across this interesting little piece about the Benghazi attack that happened last year. Rand Paul actually said that it was the ‘worst tragedy since 9/11’ and puts the blame squarely on Hillary Clinton’s shoulders.

For those who forgot, the Benghazi incident occurred on September 11^th 2012 in the Libyan city of Benghazi, where armed group of people killed four Americans. “Between 125 and 150 gunmen, "some wearing the Afghan-style tunics favored by Islamic militants," are reported to have participated in the assault.^[24][25][26] Some had their faces covered and wore flak jackets.^[27]”

The thing that bothers me about this is the fact that Benghazi really wasn’t the worst terror attack since 9/11. There have been so many others, and many Americans have died in terror attacks after 9/11 while under Bush’s administration. Have we all forgotten about that? Have we forgotten that terror attacks have been down since the tail end of the Clinton administration? 

The 9/11 terror attacks were on US soil, and approximately 3,000 people were killed, hundreds more injured, and many more died later because of diseases they contracted from the dust and debris of the fallen towers. That truly is the worst attack against this country since the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

And it’s not like this sort of thing didn’t happen after 9/11. 19 US Consulates have been attacked since 1979 and seven of those were under the Bush administrations watch. Why is it that no action was taken against the Bush administration? Why is it that when stuff like this happens when a Democrat is in office that suddenly this sort of thing is bad and isn’t just a fact of life?

Fox News is acting like the Benghazi attack was some horrible attack the likes have never been seen before on or off the battlefield. But when you think about it this sort of thing has been happening since before Bush’s time, before Obama’s time, before Clinton’s time. This isn’t some new phenomenon that is somehow only now manifesting itself because there is a Democrat in office.

I think saying that this attack is worse than 9/11 is pure 100% political exaggeration on the part of Republicans. We’ve had a lot of good Americans die on their watch, and several US Consulate attacks in which Americans lost their lives, and we are going to focus on this one now because Obama is in office? When Bush was in office and the Dems tried to condemn him for attacks that occurred under his watch did the right-wing not say that there was no way to know when an attack is going to happen and that all attacks are tragedies but we are in a time of war and these things happen and you shouldn’t say disparaging things about your President?

Well hey, guess what folks? We are still at war! No matter how much we Democrats would like to believe that Obama has ended the war in Iraq and Afghanistan doesn’t mean that it’s so. We still have military presences there, and we are still fighting people there. Just because Obama sent some troop’s home doesn’t mean the climate of the war has changed. And the right-wingers are right too, these things happen during times of war. So why is it that they can say that and get away with it when their guy is in office, but when a Democrat is in office it has to be the ‘worst tragedy since 9/11’?

I’ll tell you what the worst tragedy since 9/11 was, it was the war in Iraq. 3,542 American soldiers died in combat while serving in Iraq, some of them had their bodies dragged through the streets and hung from large over passes as trophies as their charred guts spilled out onto the street. War is hell and is the ultimate tragedy which trumps any US Consulate attack.

Those Americans who died during this attack were brave people. You have to be brave to be a diplomat in a potentially hostile foreign country. You don’t just hide behind the curtains; you have to mix with the people, mingle with them, and get to know them. That is the function of a diplomat, and that is a pretty scary thing to do if you think about it. Your life is at risk every moment you are putting yourself out there, making yourself vulnerable in the name of diplomacy and peace.

This is just another case of politicians using certain events for their own gain. The Democrats are doing the same thing right now with gun control, and now the Republicans are doing the same thing with Benghazi. Pointing at each other and trying to point out flaws and place blame.

The blame should really be placed on all of our shoulders, meaning the American people. Either way you slice it we are allowing this type of bullshit to propagate, this he said she said, diversionary tactics type of bullshit which all politicians use against use. To say that the attack in Benghazi was the worst tragedy to happen since 9/11 is like saying that an assault rifles ban will stop school shootings. It just isn’t real, folks.

Presidential Failure! Obama Starts Off Second Term on Wrong Foot

So who heard about what Obama signed just recently? Do you have any ideas? Was it a world peace treaty? Did he sign a bill that made the Federal Reverse illegal, thus eliminating the national debt? No, none of that. What he did was something sinister in my eyes, something that the people who voted him in did not want to see happen.

Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2013, thus continuing to allow indefinite detention of American citizens and the continued operation of Guantanamo Bay. This comes after the President said that he would veto the NDAA bill, leaving some to believe that Obama gave into GOP pressures, especially after the tense fiscal cliff debate which was never solved on time due to some major conflicting politics.

FROM THE ARTICLE:

"President Obama has utterly failed the first test of his second term, even before inauguration day,” American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony Romero said in a statement. “His signature means indefinite detention without charge or trial, as well as the illegal military commissions, will be extended.”

Can you imagine how pissed off I am right now? Maybe you can’t, because maybe to you this doesn’t matter and you think our President can do no wrong because you’re a Democrat and everything he does is golden. But this isn’t the first time the President has said he was against something or for something than gone completely back on his previous word.

Remember in 2009 when the health care debate was a hot button issue? One of the major talks was about a Public Option for health care which Obama supported during his run for office for the 2008 ticket. While the debate was happening Obama came out and said no to a public option, saying that he never campaigned on that issue and was never one of his causes.

Luckily for us Rachel Maddow from MSNBC remembered exactly what Obama said, she even replayed some of the Obama campaign videos in which he clearly states that he is in favor of a public option. Maddow played this clip repeatedly, but did it make anyone change their minds about the President. No, of course it didn’t. Many people probably don’t even remember it.

The problem with this President is that he gives in too easy, and on top of that he’s just a politician like all of the rest. At the beginning of 2012 Obama was completely against gay marriage, and boom just a few months before the election he says he is in favor of it. If you were ever looking for a quicker way to get the majority of intelligent homosexuals to vote for you that’s the way to do it, and boy did it work out well for him.

But now we have this President who we voted for because we wanted less war, less power to government authorities who can drag us out of our house and lock us up for no reason without a trial, and the closure of the Guantanamo detention center. Did he do any of this? No, instead he signed the bill allowing the government to lock us up indefinitely, and will keep Guantanamo open for an undisclosed amount of time.

Doesn’t this just kind of go to show us something here? First the President wants to take our guns away and now he is backing the NDAA bill, which he wanted us to think he would veto. Hmm, disarm the public then make it legal to detain them for ANY REASON you want.

 Think that the war on drugs is bullshit and are talking shit on it? Pull that asshole out of his house and throw him in a cell.

Think the Administration of this or future White Houses is corrupt? Break that terrorists door down, gag him, and make him disappear.

Don’t agree with the newest law that was passed limiting you’re free speech? Label that douche an anti-patriot socialist and let society shun him.

This is what I’m talking about here, the government’s resistance to its own people. And to think we voted for Obama because we thought he was enlightened and would steer us away from this, but alas we were dead wrong.

The scary thing is that many people who voted for Obama who were against NDAA and indefinite detention and Guantanamo and pretty much all of those things in the PATRIOT ACT which the NDAA will be extending will still be in support of Obama. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that we truly believed that Obama would repair the mistakes that were made by the Bush Administration, but instead he is going to extend those mistakes and just act like he never did it.

Obama even said that he has “reservations” about the NDAA bill, and also said that no one from his administration would ever invoke the indefinite detention part of the bill. But that is just his opinion on the law, not the law. He leaves the door wide open for another administration to interpret the law a different way. What if the next administration will invoke the indefinite detention of American citizens without trial? Does that mean that Obama’s administration is clean of any wrong doing? Oh my god, hell no! You still signed the damn thing into law! You may not use the law you just signed in but who says other people after you won’t? What would you say then, Mr. Obama? “Uh, oh well.”

This is what Obama does into his second term? Is he really going to spit in the faces of those who got him elected by doing exactly what they DIDN’T want him to do?

Still, I think Obama was a better choice than Romney for obvious reasons, but why the hell would we want to vote him in for a second term is he is going to be “Romney Lite”? We didn’t vote for a Republican, we voted for a Democrat, a Democrat who made promises to not be like his opponent but then gets voted in and becomes a carbon copy of what we didn’t want. Hey at least he pretended to be on our side, right?

The reason we are mad about this is mainly because of some of the wording we see here in bills like the NDAA. It basically states that shall the President believe that anything he signs into law is unconstitutional then he can treat it as non-binding. So it basically means that the President can choose what he wants to do whenever he feels it is necessary.

 “I know I said I was against using this law, but I have decided it would be a good idea to use it against this list of people right here. Still, this does not affect the majority of law abiding citizens in America so everyone needs to calm down because this isn’t some indiscriminate search and detain mission…or is it?”

I am pissed. The man I trusted with my country, twice now, has gone across the line this time. All we wanted was for him to do what the people want, and he can’t even do that. This is a democracy, isn’t it? Then why do I not have control over my government? Why is it that I vote in a guy who says he is on my side and then breaks his promises to me? Why did you have to be all sneaky about it and sign it into law when everyone was still rearing over the Sandy Hook events and the fiscal cliff debate? It was almost like one was used for the cover of another, and if this was a plan then it was executed without nearly any hiccups. This is not the man I voted into office, this is some Republican “Body Snatcher” who has hijacked Obama. Damn, if that were only the case.

So what do we do as the American people? I mean, we don’t want this law, do we? If we don’t then why don’t we do something about it, like send letters to him and our representatives? We need to do something. We need to let Obama know that he is OUR President and he does what WE want him to. We did not vote him in to make decisions for us, and this is the message that we need to send to this administration. 

SOURCES:

Huff Post News Article

 The New Turks Video

President Obama's Broken Promises Video

Penn Argues Gun Control on Wendy Williams

For those who don’t know me well let me just say this. I love Penn and Teller. I love their magic, I love their TV shows and I love their commentary on current events on society. I’m a liberal Democrat, I think that gay marriage should be legal, I don’t think we should spill our blood for oil, I think we need alternative fuel sources and get rid of gasoline, and I think a lot of corporations are evil mother fuckers. But I’m not for gun control, so I think that throws people off. “Wait, you can’t be a democrat! You’re not for gun control!” To that I say, “Go fuck yourself.”

I used to be for gun control after I watched “Bowling for Columbine” with a friend while in high school. I thought it made so much sense at the time, but I was just young, stupid, and idealistic. Sure, it would be great if guns just suddenly disappeared and world peace commenced, but I’m a realist and I know that is not going to happen. When I started to get older I started to realize that maybe, just maybe Michael Moore was wrong. So I watched “Bowling for Columbine” again and after the movie and I walked away with a completely different view on gun control.

I think Michael Moore makes some good points and I don’t believe the entire movie and its content should be thrown out. It’s like the movie “Zeitgeist”, it has some good information in it, but don’t just follow the whole movie and what it says, pick and choose what you think is best, rather than taking the whole thing as truth.

I do the same with Penn and Tellers show, “Bullshit”. It’s a great show and it has great arguments and information. I sometimes agree with everything they say in any one of their episodes, but there are some episodes that I think are bullshit and some things they say which I don’t agree with. They even say in their show to not take what they say as the absolute truth, that they are just two assholes who have a research team and want to rant about subjects they think are crazy. So do the thinking yourself, don’t let them do it.

I came across this Youtube.com video last night that has Penn on the Wendy Williams Show debating gun control. The video starts off with Penn saying that most people who have guns don’t use them. This is true, but mere facts don’t stop these ladies at all. They continue to say that the old saying “if you have a gun you better know how to use it” translates to “if you have a gun you use it all the time.” The argument that if you have a gun you’re going to use it holds no water.

My favorite line from Penn is at the beginning when he says, “most people are overwhelmingly good.” And I believe that, because if it weren’t true then what type of society would we be living in today? Most likely one that is not very friendly. It would be a society where you would really be afraid of absolutely everything.

The idea that there are 320 million people in America and 310 million guns does not translate to “almost everyone owns a gun.” The numbers don’t work out that way, we all know that, and we shouldn’t say stupid things like that.

Then the argument about violent movies and video games came up. These women actually believe that violent video games and movies encourage or inspire kids to commit school shootings. This bullshit is so far out of left field, there is no proof to back up the claim that violent games and media create killers.

Penn brought up a great point about this too. He says you can’t blame Shakespeare’s work for the violence that happens in the real world. For hundreds of years people have been trying to blame things in art for the violent crimes that are committed. Shakespeare’s work has suicide and murder and is shows the darker side of human nature and a beautiful side as well. He makes the comparison to art and says these violent video games are forms of art, and you can’t blame art for making people go crazy and wanting to kill people, it just doesn’t happen.

Penn got real upset by the middle of the debate when of the women said that Adam Lanza was border line aspergers and that he was inundated with violence from games like Call of Duty and decided to just go on a rampage. Penn stopped her and said that we shouldn’t be attacking people with aspergers and that they are not violent people and video games certainly don’t make them any more violent than people who don’t have aspergers.

But of course they still pushed the issue that violent video games make kids crazy by arguing that Adam Lanza’s favorite video game was Call of Duty. Penn immediately lays the smack down on them by simply stating that many peaceful people play Call of Duty.

“Call of Duty is the most popular game there is. Everyone’s playing it so of course bad people are gonna play it too. To try to blame Shakespeare and the violence in Shakespeare and the violence in art for violence that happens in the real world is something that’s been tried for years and is always wrong. People must take responsibility. We must stop blaming society and start blaming the perpetrator. Call of Duty is something young people like and enjoy and it’s a game and most of those people aren’t violent, most of the people are good and we have to stop disliking our children. We attacked comic books we attacked monster movies, now we’re attacking video games. Love our children, take care of our children and let them play.”

Wendy goes on to say that Jamie Fox says that there can be no doubt that violence in movies and video games has an effect on our children, to which case Penn replies, “Well Jamie Fox is wrong.” And besides, who the fuck cares about what Jamie Fox has to say? Has he done any research? No, it’s just a good thing to say on a TV show because he is a celebrity; therefore he CAN’T be wrong, right? Fucking morons.

“Blame the killers, not the artists,” Penn cries during the show after the incredibly stupid comments made by Wendy Williams about violence in movies and games. “Why are you blaming artists for something that bad people did? Shakespeare is not a bad person, he wrote beautiful stuff. It has suicide, it has murder, and it tells us something about our hearts and people who watch Shakespeare don’t kill, and Call of Duty is art, it is not some sort of propaganda thing.”

I think Penn is right on the money with this one. We have to stop blaming our society, our artists, our film makers, our video game designers, and start loving our children, taking care of them, make sure to listen to them and not blame the artists for the crimes committed by a bad person.

We act as thought the mere existence of guns and violent content in our society is the main cause for mental illness or aggressive behavior when they are not. The people who committed the crimes, regardless of whether or not they are mentally ill or narcissistic, or psychotic, or none of the above should be the ones who we blame, not society!

I think Penn did a great job, but unfortunately the shrews on the Wendy Williams show would barely let him speak and he had to speak over them many times to get his valid points across.

I think if Wendy Williams wants to blame video games for violent behavior then she should blame her show for making people agree with her stupid comments because she has an applause light that flashes every time she makes her point. During the entire video the audience claps for both Penn’s comments and Wendy’s comments, but how can that be when Penn and Wendy are on two opposite sides of the argument? If the audience confused, or are they just being inundated with an applause light that makes them clap when stupid comments are made? I think if she can make the argument that video games make kids aggressive then I can make the argument that she show makes people stupid and forces people to agree with her because she can flash a light which triggers human beings to agree with bullshit comments.

In the end you could tell Penn was upset with the idea that people who have aspergers syndrome can become violent by playing video games, simply because they have issues with what is socially acceptable or not. He ended the video by interrupting Wendy as she was about to go to commercial break by saying, “Aspergers syndrome people don’t become violent, there’s no evidence of that. They’re friends of mine, I love them.”

All I can say is, you rock Penn, and I love you for trying to set these women straight, even though they tried to shut you down multiple times. It is time to stop blaming guns and society and start blaming the perpetrators and stop ignoring our children. 

Why Gun Control Doesn't Work

The gun control debate in our country is in full swing as Democrats and Republicans use the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting for their own political purposes. Diane Feinstein has already proposed a bill which will ban certain “firearm characteristics” such as semi-automatics, certain rifles, and even some hand guns. The purpose of which is to try to lower the amount of violent gun crimes. 

Of course this has the right-wingers up in arms, who believe that in order to stop events like Sandy Hook from happening again we need to place armed guards in our schools to protect our children.

Both sides are showing their claws on this one, with Republicans claiming that Democrats are attacking the constitution and the Second Amendment. Whereas Democrats are saying that those guns are killing people and they must be regulated more heavily.

Both sides are on TV as well, debating whether or not armed guards are the answer or gun bans. This is sort of interesting seeing as how the fiscal cliff is looming over our heads like a soggy diaper full of economic slavery and the media is focused on gun control, so my guess is Sandy Hook happened at just the right time so politicians can distract us from the real issues at hand.

I don’t think armed guards are the answer, nor do I think gun control is the answer. But with this new proposal being made I just have to get up and say something about this. As Americans we really need to focus on the real issues at hand, and whereas this issue of school shootings is a real thing that needs focus we must never forget what else is going on in our country.

So buckle up people, because I’m going to smash the gun control argument and talk about the violent over throw of the United States government, Reno style.

First off, let’s talk about the Second Amendment and the right to bare arms. There seems to be a lot of confusion over this amendment, both sides claiming that it actually means this or actually means that. But why is it we can’t understand this amendment? It’s all over one little comma. Let’s take a look at the Second Amendment.

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

OK, a militia to protect the state…so a military, that makes sense. And let’s see here…the right of the people to bare arms shall not be infringed. Seems to be pretty straight forward to me, but the debate that gun control proponents try to use lies within that little comma that’s separating the militia part from the people part, saying it’s just a slight…pause…to catch your breath. Let’s read the amendment one more time.

“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.”

You see it’s not the right of the militia to keep and bare arms that shall not be infringed; it’s the right of the people. That’s the PEOPLE as opposed to the MILITIA, two completely separate things which are clearly worded in this amendment. That’s really all there is to the Second Amendment. There aren’t many words at all, just very specific ones.

And why would the Founding Fathers put this in the Bill of Rights? Because the PEOPLE just got done fighting a war, for two years, against a tyrannical state MILITIA that tried to disarm them and make them submit. They knew that the time would come again for the America people to rise against the government, and they wanted the PEOPLE to be prepared for the next revolution by arming themselves. This idea is still very real today, as we are Americans and it is our duty as Americans to pick up our guns and revolt against the government when it’s not doing what we want it to...but unfortunately it’s a duty we have seemed to forgotten. A democracy can only be a true democracy when the PEOPLE have the power to overthrow their rulers and their MILITIA when it’s needed.

Funny, these gun control proponents can’t seem to point out any other places where these hack framers fucked up the wording.

All gun control really does is take the gun out of the law abiding citizens hand and put it into the criminal’s hands. Criminals, who have no regard for the law, will go out and buy these illegal weapons for the specific intent of committing a crime and hurting someone. A law abiding citizen, someone who does have respect for the laws, would not be buying these weapons to commit crimes or hurt people on purpose. So why are we taking the guns out of the good guys hands, essentially disarming the law abiding public?

A lot of people make the argument that there are millions of guns and that everyone has to have a gun because there are so many of them. So if that’s the case then why don’t we see these types of events all the time in the news? No, not everyone owns a gun, but a lot of people do, and if guns make people crazy and do bad things then why haven’t we wiped ourselves off the face of the planet yet? It’s because most people are good hearted folks and they don’t want to break the law or hurt anyone else.

Many pro-gun control folks say it’s because we don’t need these types of weapons, as if we may never have to rise up against a despotic government ever again. Many want guns completely banned, so no one can legally own a gun, believing that true law abiding citizens don’t arm themselves, they call the police. But disarming the public and allowing only the police and military to have firearms is a terrible idea. Think about it, who are you going to call against the police? Better yet how can you rise against your despotic government when the military has all of the power? You can’t, and that’s why we have the Second Amendment.

Let’s talk about school shootings…again. One of the ideas is that gun control will help prevent future school shootings from ever happening, but this can’t be further from the truth. Take Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold for example. According to gun control proponents the shooting at Columbine high school could have never happened. Colorado had an assault weapons ban law on the books, a law that was meant to prevent bad people from getting a hold of powerful firearms and using them to commit crimes. Harris and Klebold both had illegal high powered assault weapons that used to commit their terrible act, killing a dozen and injuring more than twenty.

Crazy People 1 : Gun Control 0

The very idea that banning guns or limiting guns or any of that bullshit is to stop violent crimes from occurring, but when a crazy person wants to do something crazy he will find a way to do it, and no law will be able to stop him. Even if you were to outlaw guns completely they are still a very easy weapon to make, and if I can’t find one on the black market then I’m sure my pro-gun buddy who owns the metal shop could fashion one for me. Then I’ll go right up to you with it and shoot you in the face and you’re the only one who has paid the price.

Crazy People 2 : Gun Control 0

The fact is that these people have already broken gun control laws that were already in place. Gun Control laws with the specific intent to prevent these kinds of violent crimes from happening. That worked well, didn’t it? The odds of getting killed in a school shooting are 1/3,000,000. Holy shit, you have a better chance of being stuck by lightening for Christ’s sake!

Let’s talk about armed guards now. I don’t think we need them, because the whole idea of us having to place armed guards in our schools to protect our kids against gun violence when the odds are 1/3,000,000 is just alarmist bullshit. Your kids are just as safe in school today as they were before Columbine happened and before school shootings became a media hit.

But I do think that more states should allow conceal and carry laws so that the average citizen can own and carry their gun (hidden on their body) in public. I think this will in fact make violent crime rates go down, because you won’t know who’s packing.

Little experiment I got from Penn & Teller’s Bullshit show about gun control; let’s say every woman in the United States is issued a gun. They can do whatever they want with it, leave it at home, take it shopping with them, sell it, or give it away. Let’s say that only 50% of woman decide to keep their gun with them, are you really still going to risk mugging or raping a woman when you know there is a 50% chance that she’s got a gun?

So no we don’t need armed guards, we just need more people who are gun enthusiasts, and good law abiding people who have conceal and carry permits. It’s our duty to protect each other, and how can we do that when we aren’t armed and the criminals are?

I have to say that with these new gun control proposals I’m not really sure what the right to bare arms means any more. “You have the right to bare arms, but only the ones that we say you can have.” That does not sound like freedom to me at all. That sounds like the government telling me once again that I have the freedom to do something only if they like it. Is it right to allow the government to mandate that shit? Isn’t that kind of like the government telling you who you can or can’t marry, or forcing you to immunize your kids?

This is the exact reason the Second Amendment exists, to stop the government doing exactly this type of thing.

Think rationally folks, we don’t need armed guards in our schools, we don’t need more bullshit gun control laws, we just need more guns in the right hands, because when we make gun control laws we take guns out of the right hands and put them into the wrong hands. We can’t count on the government or the police or the military to get things done right, we can only count on ourselves.

The government says it is trying to make us safer by limiting our rights, and the scary part is that we are letting them. We allow email spying, wire tapping, freedom of speech violations, unlawful detentions, all kinds of crazy shit. Those were rights that people died fighting for so that we can have them and we’re just going to give them all away? We need to get back on the right track now. 

Piers Morgan Deportation Petition

Ah, the shit has really hit the fan now! People are pissed and they want Piers Morgan out of the country. His constant and reckless concern for this nation’s bill of rights is what is forcing the American people’s hand to creating a petition to have him deported from the United States of America.

So what did he do? He must have told people they can’t sing Christmas Carols, or maybe he broke up a tea party rally and violated their free speech, or maybe he wants to get rid of the second amendment completely and have all of our guns taken away. Wait…he doesn’t?

Piers Morgan is under fire by the right-wing because of comments he made on his show about gun control. Morgan has always been a proponent of gun control and is verbal about it on his CNN news show. He had a guest on his show who made some good points about guns, those being that guns are here, they are an 18^th century technology, and they last several human life times with minimal maintenance. And that is why he believes that guns should be in schools…

OK I’m not all about this idea to put armed guards in our schools because it’s alarmist bullshit. School shootings happen, yes, and they will continue to happen. Think of it as 7-11; more 7-11’s get robbed than schools get shot up in America each year. Do we need an armed guard in every god damn 7-11? I understand this is to protect the children, and their lives are worth more then whatever a cash register holds at a convenience mart. But really, do we need to be putting armed guards in every school to make sure our kids our safe?

I’m also not for what Piers Morgan says either. Doing the exact opposite and limiting the amount of guns or banning certain guns, or banning certain ammunition clips, is not going to solve the problem.

But this petition bullshit is just straight right-winged non-sense. Basically the petition was created because of comments Morgan made about gun control, so the right-wing blasted him saying that he has “engaged in a hostile attack against the US Constitution by targeting the second amendment.”  

I’m still not sure as to how asking for gun control is a hostile attack against the US, I certainly don’t think gun control does shit, but is asking for gun control an attack against the Constitution? Nah, I don’t think so.

It will become an attack when politicians work to repeal the second amendment. If an all out ban on guns is ever conceived then that should be when we rise up to say ‘Oh hell no’.

Now if Morgan had his way would the whole world be gun free? Yes. And why the fuck not, if you could enlighten every fucking human on earth, and we all got rid of our weapons that would be awesome. To bad it’s a pipe dream, but hey, is it really that bad of an idea? Is it really such a dangerous idea that someone should be deported for it?

I think Americans need to start thinking a little more rationally then be on the party lines, if you know what I mean. Sure, there are a lot of parts of life that really are black and white, but there is a whole lot of gray in between.

It’s like pro-life or pro-choice; EVERYBODY is for pro-life AND pro-choice, but the issue is whether you are for or against abortion. But when you think along party lines it is very easy for these distinctions to get blurred. Gun control doesn’t exactly mean the ban of all firearms to the public just like the Constitution doesn’t say that everyone needs to own a gun.

Just because Morgan shares a completely different view on gun control than I do doesn’t mean he is attacking my rights. No, he won’t be doing that until he tries to forcefully take my guns away by either making it law or trying to physically take it (the latter of which is not a bright idea).

So calm down you Mitt Romney voting, right-winged gun-nuts. Morgan may have a different opinion than you, one that you may completely disagree with and think he is a moron for even having, but he has a right to say it, and it would be really bad if you took away his Constitutional right to say it because you assumed he was trying to take away your Constitutional right to fire it.

Using Newtown Shooting for Political Purposes? You don’t say!

(Any comments would be much appreciated.)

We are now two days away from Christmas and the people of Newtown Connecticut and the entire nation are still reeling from the horrible tragedies that took place at the Sandy Hook Elementary school. So much has unraveled since that terrifying day when dam Lanza killed twenty-six people before doing himself in, many of those things I have covered here in this blog. But one thing I haven’t been covering as much is the use of the tragedy by politicians for their own purposes. I did say in an earlier blog that we shouldn’t expect too much from politicians as they will only offer us sympathy and promises with no real solutions.

The political tension in the wake of Sandy Hook is rising as Democrats and Republicans are both coming up with their own ideas as to how these tragedies can be prevented and how their own agenda can be furthered. Republicans are saying that armed guards should be present in all schools for protection, while Democrats are saying that gun control laws are too lax and that further regulation of firearms and ammunition is needed.

But this is the perfect time for either party to take a shot at one another as well. In an article I found on Yahoo! News Grover Norquist accuses President Obama and Democrats of using the Newtown tragedy to push their gun control agenda. 

Grover Norquist on ABC accusing Obama and Dems of using Sandy Hook for political purposes

 FROM THE ARTICLE:

"We ought to calm down and not take tragedies like this, crimes like this, and use them for political purposes," Norquist told me on "This Week." "President Obama has been president for four years. If he thought some gun control could solve this problem, he should have been pushing it years ago."

I love that first part of the sentence, "We ought to calm down and not take tragedies like this, crimes like this, and use them for political purposes”, as Norquist himself is actually endorsing an NRA recommendation to place armed guards in our public schools for protection. So who should be calming down? The guys who want to regulate guns more, or the guys who think armed guards should be in every school? In my opinion, both. 

NRA recommends all schools have armed guards.

When you’re anti-something, there is always going to be another side to the issue, a pro-something side, like anti-gun/pro-gun, and people who are anti-gun will call for the amount of guns to be reduced while pro-gun people will call for a proliferation of guns. And after an event like the Sandy Hook shooting the anti-gun folks are going try to make you believe this happened because there are so many guns in the country and they are easily obtainable, while the pro-gun people will try to get you to believe the tragedy happened because there aren’t enough guns.

And now it’s time to point the fingers in the political world and blame each other for taking political advantage of a horrible occurrence even though both sides are doing the same exact thing.

How can Norqusit come out and accuse Obama and other Democrats for using the Sandy Hook event to push gun control laws when he and Republicans are using the event to push gun proliferation? Norqusit says he thinks Democrats should “calm down” and not turn this into a political hot button and at the same time saying that we need to put armed guards in every school to protect our children. 

Retired marine Staff SGT standing guard at local school

Don’t both of those ideas sound the least bit alarmist to you? I mean, how can we be so fearful as to put armed guards in our schools yet tell others they need to clam down about the ease in which guns are available?  Or vise versa.

The gun control debate itself doesn’t seem to be centered around a all out ban of hand guns or assault weapons, although those ideas are being vocalized by politicians, but rather on the ban of extended magazines and high capacity ammunition clips.

One writer believes that giving up these extended clips is the real solution and that focusing on mental health is just a distraction.

FROM THE ARTICLE:

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan said that LaPierre's suggestion that the effect of a violent culture on the mentally ill has contributed to increased gun violence, but she believes that Congress should pursue some gun control measures.

"I am for the banning of the extended magazines and extended clips," Noonan said.

Editor and Publisher of The Nation Katrina vanden Heuvel said that focusing on the mentally ill is a distraction from the issue of gun violence.

"The mental illness argument has been used to evade action," vanden Huevel said. "More guns and bullets, more dead children."

The idea that more bullets and more guns equal more dead children is absolute horse shit. According to this writer the ban of extended mags and high cap clips will reduce the amount of children being shot up in school violence. I hate this argument, because if I was out of my mind and wanted to hurt somebody I DO NOT need either of those extended capacity ammunition clips, PERIOD.

When we look at these shooting incidences we see that they all have one major thing in common; they are all suffering from some type of mental issue or some case of extreme anger in which case therapy or any other type of help was not sought or was not successful. These events don’t just happen at schools either, as proved by the recent shootings at malls and movie theaters by deranged psychopaths who have no sense of wrong or right and simply put are deluded individuals. The excuses, “I wanted to see what would happen” or “I wanted to kill all the phonies” or “I was upset with the way my life was going” or the excuses of people who have little to no moral compass or little to no understanding of the consequences of their actions (unless of course they do understand their consequences in which case they just don’t care or are planning to off themselves anyway at the end of their deed).

I guess what I am saying here is that we shouldn’t get caught up in thinking that only one side of the political spectrum is using this event for political gain. They both are, and it is quite evident that they are.

Norquist was right about one thing though, we do need to calm down, all of us. Those who want guns in our schools for protection and those who wanted to place regulations on firearms. The presences of armed guards in schools won’t limit tragedies, and neither will a ban on high capacity ammunition clips.

If we have armed guards in school surely they may not be able to react quickly enough to each and every instance. The idea that a bad guy with a gun can only be thwarted by a good guy with a gun is pretty accurate, but what if the good guys couldn’t react in time and a few people died?

The ban of high caps won’t do shit. As I said, if I truly wanted to hurt someone I can do it without a lot of ammunition. If Adam Lanza forced his way into Sandy Hook with only one hand gun and a regular capacity ammunition clip he would have STILL KILLED PEOPLE. Sure it may not have been as many, but the deed would still have been done, nothing can stop that. And if an armed guard was on the premises maybe he would have gotten to Adam sooner and only a few people were injured or killed, but still the act was accomplished, people died.

Adam Lanza was in fact a troubled young man. According to reports he hardly spoke to anyone and would rarely if ever look them in the eyes. He was hiding from the world, descending into his basement room where he would hide every day and immerse himself in the fantasies he created that he was more able to cope with. He was truly a young man who was in need of some serious therapy, which his mother tried to provide for him.

There are many people who knew Nancy Lanza that are being quoted in news articles saying that Nancy was trying to find help or Adam, and a conflicting report that she had considered to commit him to a mental institution.

With that being said, why are people trying to say that the mental health argument is just a distraction from the real cause? The real cause IS mental health, and this needs to be addressed in our country.

What I do find funny is that the Republicans are the ones who are really saying that this is an issue of mental health rather than firearms regulation, yet the Republicans are responsible for 4.3 billion dollars worth in cuts for mental health programs.

So yes, this is very much a matter of mental health and it should be treated as such. No need to go into a fear mongering campaign by either trying to reduced or increase the amount of weapons available to the general population. The more people who have healthy minds the less senseless violence will occur. 

SOURCES: 

Yahoo! News Article

Obama Demands Gun Control Debate

(What do you think about the gun control debate after the events in Newtown, Connecticut? Comment below with your thoughts.)

So the war against the Westboro Baptist Church is raging on. The victims of the Sandy Hook shooting are trying to bury their loved ones but are being harassed by the church. Anonymous has been putting on the pressure as their Operation Westboro (#OpWestboro, #OpWBC) is in full swing.

The shootings occurred last Friday in Newtown Connecticut when a crazed gun man named Adam Lanza forced his way into an elementary school where he opened fire and killed twenty children and six adults. Lanza acquired the guns through his mother, who was an avid gun enthusiast, by stealing them from her and killing her with one.

This terrible tragedy has invoked the gun control debate by politicians of course, and President Obama himself is demanding action on gun control by creating a task force. Yes, a task force…but what does that mean exactly?

From the Article:

"This time, the words need to lead to action," said Obama, who set a January deadline for the recommendations. He vowed to push for their implementation without delay.

I’m not surprised by this at all. It was my first thought when the shootings occurred that the politicians would be offering us empty promises and sympathy with no solution other than to debate and enact new gun laws. Being an avid proponent of firearms and the 2^nd Amendment I am against this.

Obama says that he is for the 2^nd Amendment, but he does believe that certain gun control laws/restrictions would decrease the amount of shooting deaths in the United States. Even some congress members who are pro gun rights are starting to consider legislation to control firearms. But aren’t firearms already being controlled?

Obama plans to create new gun control policies such as stricter background checks and limit high capacity ammunition clips, but also says that he wants improved focus on mental health as well. Which will actually happen, or come first? I’m sure it will be the stricter gun control laws. Obama’s ‘deadline’ for gun control proposals is January 2013.

The President says he encourages all people from all types of political backgrounds to come together and have these discussions about what type of control should be enacted.

From the Article:

"The fact that this problem is complex can no longer be an excuse for doing nothing," Obama said. "The fact that we can't prevent every act of violence doesn't mean we can't steadily reduce the violence."

I have to say that I’m tired of politicians using every chance they can at furthering their own agenda and not the American citizens who voted them into office

Guns do not kill people, people kill people. And the very fact that politicians are using this event to try to take or curb our usage of firearms just goes to show how afraid they are of the American citizens being armed.

The 2^nd Amendment has some very specific wording:

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.

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. It’s the Militia Vs. The People. It’s not saying “the right of the militia to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. It says THE PEOPLE. And why did the founding fathers write this? Because THE PEOPLE just got done fighting a war, for two years, against a tyrannical state MILITIA, who tried to take their rights and disarm them.

If we are going to talk about things that people kill with lets talk about knives and cars and doctors. I can kill someone just as easily with a car. “But Reno, the government regulates cars and doctors!” Pssh…what’s going to stop me? I don’t have a license or a car, but what’s stopping me from stealing someone else’s car and waiting for children to get out of school so I can run them down? Not some law, that’s for sure.

The fact is that when we talk about these types of tragedies we wonder about how we could have prevented it and the number one thing that comes up all the time is more gun control. But the truth is that these shooters break the laws anyway. In the case of Columbine the shooters, and the person who sold them the guns and ammo, broke the laws already in place. Adam Lanza also broke the law when he STOLE his mother’s guns. Guns which did not belong to him in the first place, and of course maybe if Nancy Lanza kept her guns locked up this would have never happened. But Nancy was an older woman who had an older son, one that should have been able to tell right from wrong and know that it would not be wise of him to touch his mother’s weapons.

Really though, this is just what politicians were waiting for, a moment to bring up the gun control debate again so they can disarm the American people and have nothing to fear anymore. In fact when you think about it by limited guns of banning guns they are actually involving fear within the people of the USA. When ordinary law abiding citizens cannot obtain fire arms that doesn’t mean criminals, people who break the laws, won’t be able to get their hands on them. And when they do they can unleash terror upon ordinary people who will not be packing because they are good citizens who obey the law. The fact is that you can’t stop an insane person from doing insane things with insane laws…that’s insane!

Many people from other countries scoff at us because we Americans clutch our guns so tightly. They scratch their heads and wonder why we cling to such destructive weapons. But they don’t understand simply because they are not Americans. We Americans are rebellious spirits who want our government to know they can’t fuck with us, and the way we do that is by arming ourselves. We fought a war against the British (yeah so what it was over two-hundred years ago) because they tried to force us to borrow money from the British national banking establishment and when we revolted they tried to take our weapons so that we could not put up a fight.

Now yes, that was a long time ago, but that spirit still remains and the idea still remains. We may one day have to do our duty as Americans and arm ourselves to stand up to our own government.

Thomas Jefferson once said that for there to be true freedom an armed rebellion against the government should take place once every twenty years. He also wrote, “What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms; let’s signify a few lives lost in a century or two. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants; it is its natural manure.”  

Guns don’t have a brain. They cannot pick themselves up and pull the trigger. Humans do have a brain however, and it is our choices that shape the world around us. Thankfully most of us are sane people and we know right from wrong, but unfortunately some of us are not. It doesn’t take a gun to hurt someone; it takes someone who wants to hurt someone, regardless of how they do it.

A lot of us don’t have much experience with guns. A lot of the exposure to guns we get comes from negative exposure from TV and movie. They strike fear into us, make us think how scary shit is and that any moment now some armed gun man can break into your home and kill you.

Fear is the politician’s companion, with enough fear legislators can walk right into congress and pass all kinds of crazy laws with the necessary steps. Politicians even create the hysteria themselves by passing gun control laws, such as the Brady Bill, which has actually been rather ineffective in keeping guns in the wrong hands.  

One of these crazy laws is the creation of the gun free zone. The gun free zone has to be the biggest pile of shit law I have heard of. Basically if you get caught with a gun while in a gun free zone your fines and punishments are increased. But we look at all of the shootings that have occurred and they all happen in ‘gun free zones’. Sandy Hook Elementary is a gun free zone, so how can this type of tragic event happen in a gun free zone?

If the number of guns in the hands of citizens truly is the problem then why don’t we see this type of violence at NRA conventions or gun shows? Surely, a place like that where tons of people are in possession of tons of guns, there must be hundreds of tragedies at these events, right? Wrong. The number of guns in the hands of the people doesn’t increase the number of violent crimes. The number of guns in the wrong hands DOES increase crime.

So how do we keep the guns out of the wrong hands? Well with all the gun laws on the books (which exceed over 20,000) you would think that criminals wouldn’t be able to get there hands on firearms. But alas, just like the war one drugs if there is a law against something there is a black market for it.

None of these gun control laws on the books prevented Columbine, and none of them prevented Sandy Hook, and none of the existing laws or future laws will prevent terrible tragedies like this from occurring.

Don’t let the government fool you into giving up your rights because of some crazy kid who misused them. The government can only take away from us what we allow them to. 

(What do you think about the gun control debate after the events in Newtown, Connecticut? Comment below with your thoughts.)

SOURCE:

Yahoo! News Report

Obama Yahoo! News Video

Twitter Tags: #Guncontrol #Obama #Sandyhook #Columbine #WBC #OpWBC #Anonymous