The ninnyhammers at Everytown are having themselves a little freak out over the fact that some Kindergartners in PA are getting gun safety lessons in school.  By gun safety, we’re not talking about going to the range for PE.  It’s the “stop, don’t touch it, leave the area, tell an adult” approach to kids and guns.  Of course, even this is too much for the anti-gunners.

I just love the intellectual inconsistency in the Left’s ideas of safety and responsibility.  Remember, it’s generally the same people who are anti-gun that think we should begin teaching sex ed at age 10 and think it’s a great idea to hand out condoms to 6th graders.  They people love to point out that abstinence only sex ed doesn’t work.

They’re right of course, about the abstinence only sex ed.  So why do they think that not even talking about guns and gun safety with kids is the right approach?

I propose a compromise.  How about taking the sex ed approach to gun safety.  With young kids, don’t touch it.  At 13, we’re going on a class field trip to the range and we’re going to learn The 4 Rules and safe handling practice.  You can give condoms to my 6th grader if I hand hand a .22 to yours.

There are two political movements going on, on America’s college campuses that are dominating the news: campus carry and safe spaces.  There is no better illustration of the difference between the Left and Right in America.

The Safe Space movement is pusillanimous and infantilizing.  Colleges are creating rooms where college students can hide from ideas that differ from their own, challenging thoughts, or heresy against the liberal orthodoxy.  Safe spaces are adorned like day care centers “cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members trained to deal with trauma.“

Trauma.  Trauma?  Trauma!?! WTF!?!  Is this what passe for trauma in modern Liberalism?  Forget getting shot at or having limbs blown off with IEDs, Liberals can be emotionally damaged by having an invited speaker hurt their feelings by telling them their facts are wrong.

The Safe Space movement is an offshoot of the trigger warning movement.  Trigger warnings are warnings put by professors on texts and/or subjects that might cause students anxiety if they read them.  Again, we’re not talking about some combat veteran jumping at the sound of a car backfiring.  We’re talking about pampered, middle class kids flinching at the sound applause.  This is so absurd that when The Onion makes fun of it, it reads like every other article I’ve cited so far.

The Left treats American college students, young men and women who a generation and two ago were old enough to be sent off to South East Asia, the islands of the Pacific, North Africa, and Europe to defeat Fascism, Nazism, and Communism, and defend freedom, and treats them like spoiled kindergartners.

On the other side of the aisle, the Right wants campus carry.  We look at the these young men and women and have the audacity to believe that they are just that, men and women, who just might have the capacity to take care of themselves.

What is the Left offering as an alternative?  Pee on yourself.

How has the Left responded to campus carry?  By acting like children.  Professors are having temper tantrums, taking their ball and going home.  Liberal kids are responding with the unbelievable petulance.  I’ve written about this before.  The Left, always expecting the least of people while projecting their shortcomings onto others, whines that students will use their guns to intimidate their professors into inflating their grades.

There you have it.  Left vs. Right.  Children vs. Adults.  They want to wrap themselves up in a blanket and suck their thumbs, and hide from anything and everything that makes them feel even slightly challenged.  We want people to rise to the challenge of adulthood and take responsibility for themselves.

This year’s Halloween decoration

One of the most important lessons I learned in grad school was “what don’t I know?”  The answer, of course, is “a lot.”

As you near the end of your studies as a PhD candidate, you have to take a comprehensive examination.  It is a test to see if you have a fundamental understanding of the subject you are going to get your degree in well enough that you can teach it to others.

No it’s not.  It is an academic gauntlet.  The purpose of which is to teach you humility.  You stand in front of a whiteboard while various professors bombard you with questions of increasing difficulty, on a subject, until you have no choice but you say “I don’t know.”  Then they move onto a different subject and repeat the process until they break you.

See, you just completed 10 years of schooling.  You think you know so much.  You don’t, and they have to prove it to you by showing you the boundaries of you knowledge.  You’re like a puppy, let loose into a big yard.  This is your realm.  And so you run until, ZAP!!!  You hit the electric fence.  You run in the other direction until ZAP!!!  You hit the fence again.  Soon you learn that in the whole wide world you can see, your realm is tiny.  You know a thimble’s worth in the ocean of knowledge.

This is an experience I wish more people would go through.  Especially journalists and politicians.

I am an expert on things in my thimble.  When I talk about them, I talk with authority.  For everything else, I research.   Before I opine, I try to learn as much as I can.

There is an expression my graduate adviser used all the time “know just enough to be dangerous.”  There is another one by Charles Darwin that I love: “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.”  Psychologists have proven that this is true, scientifically, it is called the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

For weeks the gun blogosphere has been calling out the politicians and journalists who make stupid statements and push for stupid laws regarding universal background checks, gun free zones, and everything else they claim will save lives but won’t.  How could these people say on TV or in print what they say and be so wrong with so little shame?  They have the confidence of the ignorant.

Politicians and journalists are the embodiment of the Mark Twain quote: “All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.”

Twain also said “Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”  And we know that Twain was a genius.

There is one law I would love to have pass that I believe would help this country like no other, it is this:

“Before a congressperson can vote on a bill, they have to pass a qualifying exam to demonstrate a basic knowledge of the subject matter the bill will address.”

Such a law would most likely bring DC to a standstill.  But once more we yield to the wisdom of Mark Twain “No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.”  So maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

Caught this on the news feed:

My first thought was “Anybody want to bet me that this guy is anti-gun too?”

So I went through his feed a little and lo and behold, he is.

Regarding Ben Carson’s comments on the Holocaust:

Regarding Texas campus carry:

Ahhh… It was almost too easy.

It’s an amazing coincidence isn’t it?  The people with the attitude of “believe what we want you to believe or we will kill you” don’t like it when other people own and carry guns.

This is why WE have guns.  I don’t want to stand before a firing squad because I don’t believe that my V8 pickup is directly responsible for the weather.

I’m going to double down on Miguel’s post.

A bit of tragic news hit the airwaves.  A little girl was choking in school.  An EMT with a private medical transport company was flagged down.  He stopped to help.  The girl had been choking too long and ended up brain dead, the EMT got suspended without pay for violating company policy.

I hate this story and love this story at the same time.  I hate it because of its tragic ending for the little girl.  I love it because it illustrates, as harshly as possible, life in a CSGV-esque utopia.

It’s not about the guns with the nannies and scolds.  Guns are a tool.  It is independence that these people detest.  A self reliant people do not need the government to come in and solve all of their problems.  Consequently, a self reliant people don’t need or want a big government.  Self reliance is in direct conflict with the nanny state.

So how does the nanny state make people less self reliant?  They take away the tools of self reliance.  Eventually the ability to help oneself wastes away from lack of use.

Why am I talking about guns and a government induced loss of self reliance and this little girl who choked to death.  Because it is the same mentality.  The article wonders why none of the girl’s teachers tried to help.  I can answer that.  My wife was a teacher.  Government union rules and risk aversion.  The opinion of the union was:

“You are not a medic, you are not trained to help, all you are going to do is make things worse, you can be held liable if you hurt the student trying to help, you can’t be held liable if the student dies while you were doing nothing.  DO NOTHING. DON’T HELP.  WAIT FOR THE EXPERTS.”

Teachers who violated this code of conduct were punished.  It is better to let a student die than help the student and risk making him/her worse.

Why was the EMT suspended?  Because doing good is not covered by their insurance and his company had the same stupid rules as the teachers, when it came to anybody who was not a paying client.  Better to let a bystander die than risk company liability.

Compare this to the actions of the armored car drivers during the North Hollywood Shootout who asked their company if they could use their armored car to provide cover for the officers who were helping the wounded.  The company said yes.  They were hailed as heroes.

This is what the CSGV advocates for in an active shooter scenario.  Don’t try and do anything yourself.  Attack the shooter and risk getting hurt.  Lay low and wait for the experts.  You can’t be blamed for getting killed if you did nothing.  Better to be a victim, dying on your knees, than to get shot trying to stop the killing.

People who have been disarmed, first physically then mentally, will do that… die on other knees waiting for help from the approved source.  The nanny state will honor these people as victims and create memorials to them.

Independent people will fight back.  A few may die in the process but more lives with be saved.  The nanny state will victim blame them for their own deaths.

Seen over at the Book of Face was this brilliance:

The responses went pretty much as you would expect, there were those who were somewhat pro gun, and those who… delved into the predictable territory of “Americans are stupid” and criticism of America’s gun culture.

Of course the “need” for assault rifles came up (i.e. why does anybody “need” them) and mandatory training was discussed.  Which resulted in typical pearl clutching.

Well, allow me to retort. 

The reason smart people go “f**king crazy and think the government is coming for [our] guns” is because that IS the end game for some politicians.  Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) said exactly that 20 years ago.  Don’t believe me, let her tell you herself.

When the NY SAFE act was passed, it included a provision to have all high capacity (over 10 round) magazines, including ones that had been previously grandfathered in, either turned into law enforcement or disposed of out of state.  The County of Los Angeles just passed a similar law.  Connecticut banned the sale of new high capacity mags.  Yes it’s true that magazines are not guns themselves, but they are a crucial part of the gun.  More importantly, it is a step in the direction of a confiscatory gun ban.  Get the mags first.  When people get used to that, get the guns next.  Notice how these laws all come with registration of certain, if not all, guns AND magazines.

Hillary Clinton praised Australia’s confiscatory gun ban during the DNC primary.  The article by VOX is almost giddy about Clinton wanting to confiscate guns.

Smart people see the politics of gun control like a game of chess.  It is played in small moves.

We want full 50 state CCW, that is one of our goals.  We can’t get that all at once.  We win concealed carry in Illinois, now all 50 states have a CCW law.  Next we have to win changing may issue state to shall issue. That is on the move in Maryland.  Once we have 50 state, or near 50 state, shall issue, wining national reciprocity will be easier.

We want to end the NFA.  States easing NFA restrictions has been a step in that direction.  Now there is a bill to take suppressors of the NFA.  If that passes, SBR’s and SBS’s will be next.

They want to take our guns away.  We know that.  They make it very clear that they don’t like the idea of independent armed Americans.  They know if they go for a nation wide gun ban there will be pushback.  Clinton won the Brady Bill and the Dems lost control of Congress.  So they are playing small ball.  Registration in the states they know they can get that.  Confiscatory magazine bans in states where they can get that too.  Ease people into accepting confiscation.  First take the mags then what?  Take the assault rifles?  Make a requirement for “bullet buttons” on handguns?

We are calling them out on their end game.  We don’t want to give them an inch.