Not just for the recoil therapy aspect, but to get more people into the 2nd Amendment.
That also goes for helping someone thinking about buying a gun or getting their toter's card.
Given the Stupid Party (and the lessons they'll learn, More Senator Jebus, more "careful centrsit) and the Progs (more "equality" and we can do whatever we want), I fear that Tam's prediction that we'll end up as "Europe with better gun laws." may be a bit optimistic. Just look at where the Overton Window has moved.
(On the upside said window has moved pretty well for guns at least).
Because, well, the money doesn't exist for the US to play at being Europe. The money doesn't exist for Europe to be Europe. And if you look at other nations and the war clouds brewing....
Either way we're screwed. That was baked into the cake. Hell, one election theme was that a go-getter, maybe competent, socialism-corporatism gun banner would be a firewall against another, but lazier and incompetent, socialism-corporatism gun banner.
Another was the perennial twins of "Vote for free ice-cream." and "Vote for the Status quo."
That's the problem. As a country we're flying into a mountain. One side says "Oh crap we're gonna crash. Quick, open the windows and flap our arms!"
The other side says "What are you crazy! There's no such thing as mountains. We're running late! Up the throttle and pass out more peanuts."
And the passengers not wanting to go through the hassle of all that flapping figure: Hey, free peanuts.
So go to the range, have some fun.
And get ready because something that can't go on forever... won't.
And here's Weerd with some thoughts. I'm not as optimistic that the Stupid Party will learn, or that the GOP heads will face consequences for two losses like this. But there is this upside:
For those of you concerned about your guns, take a quick look at the
Pro-Choice people. They’ve been saying for YEARS if we elect a
Republican they’ll ban abortion. Hell George W. Bush was about as
Bible-Thumpy as they come, he was pro-life, and for his first term he
had support of the House and Senate. You see him attempting to ban
Abortion? Now guns are in a LITTLE more jeopardy, but that’s just a
semantic statement. The gun shops will be loaded, the hunting season
will be filled with black rifles, and the person standing next to you on
the sidewalk, or sitting at the next table over in the Restaurant,
they’re carrying a gun.
And that's why you help people you know get that gun, get that toter's permit.
I can see the arguments for both sides. And you can go with how "only the swing states matter" and SCOTUS nominations, and how far more competent, motivated, and deft Romney is (double edged that sword is), and the idea of putting in a better Republican in 4 years and building a viable third party.
They're all good points. And even if Obama doesn't do much himself, his cronies are still empowered and internationally we live in very interesting times. Hell the debt and dependency issues aren't going away.
I don't have a decision for you. You'll have to vote your conscious. And that'll be if you go for the lizard or the wookie. Edit, me I'm going for the wookie. But I'm in a "red state". And I can't really begrudge someone for going for the lizard.
I will say that if you vote for Obama you're a fool or on the take.
For the former, that man played all you hopium addicts like the last Tulip seller in Haarlem and like a penny dreadful villain he explained his whole con in the very books you all bought and pretended to read.
For the latter, well it don't matter what I say does it? As long as the checks keep coming and you get to scream about how greedy everyone else is for not paying you more.
Here's a bunch of interesting parables about human nature and group events and survival.
Naturally they get a bit dark in places. And some are apocryphal such as the lemmings one, but they do talk about how bad stuff can happen and it's rarely "fair".
And in short, the importance of liberty, of being free. Such as the one about the starved horses. Where a farmer is taken in on animal cruelty charges because he starved his animals in the hopes of being able to afford them at a later day:
The moral of the story: The guy who is starving you may
sincerely be trying to feed you, but his best efforts might not be
enough. In the end, if you are penned in, you can be killed by simple
starvation and neglect, requiring no directly malign intention by your
captors. Starvation just happens naturally when insufficient food is
coming into the enclosure.
Or the related Crazy Cat Lady. Someone with too many animals to care for and refuses to let them go:
The moral of the story: Good intentions don’t mean squat if
you trap other living beings inside an enclosure and then you can’t feed
them in perpetuity. The holocaust that results is still on you.
Expressed good intentions about your trapped population will not be
accepted. “I was doing my best to help them” will ring as hollow a
defense as “I was just following orders.” North Korea comes to mind as a
very large enclosure.
Malevolence is not required for oppression and destruction Though funny thing, the people that want to whole the whip, that want to make a "better" man tend to rather enjoy it.
And then after the parables it gets darker. Like what happens when the food distribution systems fail? The answer is grim. In short: stay out of an adjacent to any urban centers. Oh joy.
If a big enough proportion of the populace—not even a majority, just a largish chunk—decides that it’s just not worth following the rules anymore, then that society’s days are numbered: Not even a police-state with an armed Marine at every corner with Shoot-to-Kill orders can stop such middle-class anarchy.
Brian and Ilsa are such anarchists—grey-haired, well-dressed, golf-loving, well-to-do, exceedingly polite anarchists: But anarchists nevertheless. They are not important, or powerful, or influential: They are average—that’s why they’re so deadly: Their numbers are millions. And they are slowly, painfully coming to the conclusion that it’s just not worth it anymore.
Via Glenn Reynolds who has a couple other links and notes:
This is what happens when the ruling class forfeits trust. It isn’t pretty. People at the top — in this country at least — used to worry about maintaining trust. Now they seem to take it for granted, or fail to appreciate the cost of losing it. The Gods Of The Copybook Headings are always there, though.
This is also what happens when the regular folks look and see the ruling class and the clients of the ruling class getting away with breaking all the rules and doing as they please.
We have a Treasury secretary who cheated on his taxes. But he is not the only one. There are probably more people who buy goods and services via the internet and catalogues that don’t pay sales taxes than people who do. We’ve been rehabbing our 132-year-old home for several years now, and I can tell you, some subcontractors expect to be paid in cash. We follow speed limits only when we think they are being enforced. Dads let their teenaged kids drink beer. People cross the state line to buy fireworks, or any good, when the sales tax is lower. People on unemployment compensation stretch it out so they can work on their eBay business.
...
And most people have absolutely no moral compunction about any of these violations, either of the spirit or the letter of the law, because deep down they no longer believe that the law, especially the tax code, represents any compelling moral principle, nor do its dictates seem any longer to be fair. They don’t think their home state has earned taxes on the Amazon purchases or that it deserves any share of the mutually beneficial exchange between you and your dry wall guy.
I bet you can think of a few dozen more examples, and increasingly we’re all in business and in personal life thinking of more and more ways to game a system which we have less and less faith in.
Just as the world's worst human rights violators sat on and often chaired the U.N. Human Rights Council, Iran, arms supplier extraordinaire to America's enemies, was elected on Saturday to a top position on the United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty being held in New York. It began July 2 and extends through July 27.
This came right after the same U.N. found Iran guilty of illegally transferring guns and bombs to the murderous Syrian regime of Bashar Assad, currently slaughtering thousands of its own citizens as an impotent U.N. joins the U.S. administration in standing around and watching.
Well Clinton is an eunthusiasctic supporter and Obama will eagerly sign it.
Just have a look at the picture. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez standing at the UN. Two people who are vying to be the Next Hiter, and they’re going to be instrumental parts in the UN’s actions.
Recall the useful idiots that think the UN has not just a legal legitimacy but a moral one too.
The same administration that claims Executive Privilege over Fast and Furious is eager and happy about an arms control racket. Never mind that the US's international arms sales are already heavily regulated. ITAR anyone?
The treaty also establishes a bizarre moral equivalence between countries that trade arms to defend freedom and those that do so to suppress and extinguish it. Would such a treaty allow us to sell weapons to Taiwan or Israel?
It's not so bizarre when you realize that evil regimes that regularly supply arms to other evil regimes are just fine with it. And even if the Treaty doesn't affect rights in the US it would severely curtail them in other countries? That's like saying Obama supports goverment censorship of media, publishing, and internet, but only outside the US.
Ace also thinks this whole thing stinks and points out that while the Senate probably not approve of this treaty, such Constitutional Limits wouldn't stop the President. Especially, given that this was the man that went to the UN for approval to go to war with Libya, and not congress.
This goes back to being under the radar. Well... no this is the exact oposite of under the radar.
Consider the optics. At the start this is a UN dictate to take away American Civil Liberties.
Yes it's not Blue Helmets marching the streets taking guns, but that's because the UN has outsourced the job to American Law Enforcement. And really that makes sense, the UN in and of itself is toothless, but a fancy treaty with a UN stamp could give the president cover to push his desires.
Could you see mass registration, restrictions on ownership and "normalization" of carry permits and the like? Sure.
Now Obama can take the treaty to the Senate for approval, which would be a plate of red meat.
You think ObamaCare Tax has traction among the Right to figh? Imagine a UN gun control regime.
Or Obama can ignore congress and just deem such a treaty law of the land.
Consider that. A law that infringes on the Bill of Rights, that came from a fogeign body, and is enacted without any vote by Congress. How is that not a blatant violation of the Oath of Office?
You see those Republican Governors saying they won't participate in Obamacare? Now imagine if the President declared that all their gun laws were being "federalized" to bring them in line with the UN mandate.
Yeah, that'll go over well.
To draw an analogy. Imagine if the UN passed a treaty that severely curtailed free speech, and that the president decided to just enforce it, ignoring both the role of the Senate to approve treaties and the Bill of Rights.
Whittle is right, Prohibition was repealed. A whole amendment. And the federal Assault Weapons Ban was sunsetted, and the vast majority of the US is now shall issue. So, progress can be made.
But as Tam is wont to say, guns are easy. You know what a gun is, you can get people to agree that those are being taken away.
And here's Tam's thoughts. We're basically in a choice between someone who will definitely veto a repeal attempt versus someone who probably would, and someone who has a 100% chance of getting a liberal supreme court justice, and someone who has over 50% chance of getting a liberal justice too.
We were able to realize that the Antis had no compromise, no common ground. That they did not care about reality or principle or safety, only about power.
Look at how the left has gone from being at war with Eurasia to being at war with Eastasia in the snap of an announcement. Roberts is now a hero, when the day before the media was fretting over him and worrying. That's how it works, obedience to the Ideology is rewarded, deviation is punished.
Consider how Obamacare is a tax or not a tax depending on need.
Or even more telling that the term Obamacare itself is an insult and slur... if you're against it. If you're for it, well the administration is selling lots of I <3 Obamacare swag.
Really.
When facing that level of passion and willingness to ignore reality and principle in search of political and social power compromise becomes deadly.
I suppose one advantage is the utter greed and total lack of altruism. We are dealing with a folk that see charity forcing someone else to pay at gun point.
The left will never put their own money into the pot, not unless they get something back. See Solyandra et al. As we saw with the public union protests and the like, they've gotta get paid.
So there's some advantage in that their ground game is dependent on a system where they force payment from others. There's also a great disadvantage as they have the money to pay a ground game, and have it be socially acceptable to pull out union workers and pay them to be protesters.
Break that cycle and they start to wither. We've seen it with the Antis.
We see why the Left is going to the mattresses to protect the automatic withdraw of union dues and the mandating of closed shops. Perhaps Wisconsin will turn the tide and show what can be done. Without the State forcing dues, the unions are seeing their numbers drop and more importantly their treasuries dwindle.
We've seen it with their pushing for dependency and outright bribery for votes.
The downside? Good luck breaking that cycle. Much of the public has learned that they can sell their votes for other people's money. And the only way out of that is for there to be no more money to bribe the public with.
Entitlements are an act of force. Government wrests property and services away from one person to bestow them on another at its own will, by its own wisdom and ultimately to its own benefit. At first, the recipient may think that it’s only the rich man’s freedom which is being stripped away and what’s it to him? But soon enough he finds that government is now well within its rights to control whatever it is paying to support: his behavior, his consumption, his religion, his words. He may live well only as long as he lives in obedience.
This leads to the futher downside, once someone is dependent on the State, the state can throttle down how much they need to dole out to keep you loyal.
As Glenn Reynolds says "They'll make us beggars because beggars are easier to please."
In WW2 here is what the Germans thought of the US power grid system, in their own words on a document on attacking the US, specifically Section VII "Reconnaissance and military targets on the West Atlantic Coast and in the USA":
Regarding the condition of power plants, it is concluded that:
1) In the USA the completion of power plants since 1933 has been strongly promoted by the government.
2) Each power plant is connected to the other by an extensive relay system.
3) The loss of 4 or 5 of the larger power plants [to a bombing campaign] will have little to no effect on armaments production since the energy used for civilian goods production exceeds the potential for meaningful cutbacks if necessary.
This article is an epiphany to me. I am concluding forty years of engineering, primarily energy infrastructure, $ 2.5 Bn in nukes (24), fossil fuel power plants (48) and decades assessing advanced technologies (what is coming, the technical barriers, costs, etc.). These educational practices are alien to me in my ancient education. Engineering and hard sciences (which means truth) demands rigorous disciplined thinking. There is the right answer to the home work, and wrong answers.
Today, in climate change, nuclear safety, fracking, the current technologies controversies, I continually read many articles which can be summarized as, “Cesium 131 will kill everybody in Japan because I hate GE.” I find it irrational. So I have developed a hobby, of searching for the author’s bio, on the web. I induce that 90% of the articles on technology are authored by graduates in journalism or political science, often in the teaching fields. I can not remember one article on energy authored by an experienced engineer.
I conclude that erudite Americans form their political views based on falsehoods. It explains President Obama’s energy policies. And it explains my great fear: our grid may collapse. All of your computers rely on machinery built by your grandfathers. Our engineering colleges quit teaching course work, vital to power plant engineering, decades ago. Their students could not find work. The professors are now dead. The NRC just issued the first construction permit in 36 years. This means that everyone, from the junior draftsman, through the Chief Engineer, to the CEOs, and regulators, have never done one. Engineering is a professional practice. Why is it so difficult to accept? If Tiger Woods had not held a golf club in 36 years, he would not perform at a championship level. Yet we assume our power plants, very complex systems, are eternally sound. Is this rational?
Critical thinking and sustainability, in life sustaining technologies (pumping drinking water, flushing your toilets, and heating your home) must be reconsidered by “educated” Americans.
Emphasis added.
As an Engineer, I weep. With the increasing advent of copying "round robins", the decay of American STEM students, the buying of old tests, using smartphones to cheat on exams, and the dearth of experimental coursework and research, I sometimes get the feeling of the last one off the boat.
But I recall that that can also be confirmation bias and my own ego at work. The bit about the media reporting does fall right into the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect
Electricity, water, food, and eat all come by magic, until they don't. For many it seems that a separation from the realizing how physical wants are sated has led them to feel they can smash the whole system and make one that's "better", without causing any real damage (or hurting anyone important).
Alone, small, sparse and having limited mental horizons are no way to go through life.
But as Reynolds says: they'll make us beggars because beggars are easier to please.
Again to make myself feel "special", myself and my friends were some of the last people to not get cell phones. I only got mine when I moved out to Indy after college. That's not to say the magic elf boxes in themselves are bad. Really, people being glued to them is more symptomatic of a greater illness, not the malady itself.
Also Whittle comes up with one of the best explanations of Moon-Denialism, and that its growing is another worrying symptom. And the jealous inferiority complex of our grandfathers is as much in place with our Grid as it is with the Moon.
But Whittle does offer some hope: the internet is the greatest tool the aspiring autodidact could ever hope for. Shame the whole idea has been so thoroughly crushed, but don't let that stop you.
However, you know what's worse? Compared to Kevin's essay here, the above video is a balmy bit of optimism.
In a comment on this post about people who are a bit to eager for everything to collapse so they can play their junior counter-revolutionary games:
And there's a difference between being prepared for a disaster and getting excited over the idea of one. One is wise and the other is sick.
No matter how much homeowner's insurance you have, no sane person wants a twister in the living room.
And for contrast is followed by this post on why anyone would need high cap magazines.
Or, better yet, give him the real reason: "Well, I need a magazine with thirty-three rounds in it because f&#$ you, Ed." Seriously, where does he get off thinking how many "bullets" are in my magazines is any business of his? Vobis non me dux, Ed; you ain't the boss of me.
That's why I own guns in the first place: To make sure nobody, from the mugger on the corner to the King of England to some washed-up political has-been from the Keystone State can come force me to do things against my will without me at least having a chance to shoot back.
Again the difference between wanting to cross the streams and realizing you may have to do it.
I was about to write "being prepared" but no one is really prepared if things really go downhill. Unless they've lived in the Balkans or some other lovely patch where everything did start to burn.
