I’m a doctor and I play one on the Internet.  Not an MD mind you, but a PhD.  I have a dual concentration Metallurgy and Biomedical Engineering.  I bring this up not for braggadocio but for credentials.  So when I touch on matters of biomechanics, anatomy, and physiology, I am speaking with some level of authority.

In one of Miguel’s previous posts he quoted from some CSGV blowhard (emphasis mine):

“They are so terrified of having a simple physical confrontation (i.e., shoving match, fistfight)–and so bitter about what it might do to their pride and reputation if they come out on the losing side of the equation–that they would rather shoot and kill another human being than stand up and face that situation (which frequently is of their own making).” 

I’ll admit it, I am terrified of getting into a fistfight.  I’m not gonna take it outside.  I’m not gonna settle it like a man.  I will do everything I can to avoid a fight, and if that means I have to shoot you, guess what, I’m gonna shoot you (which believe me, I’d much rather not).

Here is why, in three words, I do not want to get into a fistfight: Traumatic Brain Injury.  The human brain is made up of relatively inelastic tissue, neurons and capillaries.  The brain sits in a sack of fluid called the dura matter.  This is inside the skull. When you take a punch to the head, your head goes from still to moving very quickly.  This linear and rotational acceleration causes the brain to smash around inside of your skull like dice in a shaker.

Every time your brain hits skull, it stretches.  When your brain stretches it tears, neurons rip away from each other and capillarities rupture.  Your brain starts to bleed.  Blood collects in the spongy tissue of the brain compressing it.  The brain starts to swell, squeezing it inside of the skull.  This compression and the torn blood vessels causes a loss of blood flow to regions of the brain.  Without blood, there is no oxygen, without oxygen, parts of the brain shut down.  Long enough without oxygen, the brain dies.  When the brain dies, so do you.

A solid punch can cause your brain to smack around inside your skull with the force of a high speed car accident.  And no, it doesn’t take a professional boxer to kill with with a punch.

I like my brain.  I spend long enough in school stuffing it full of facts.  I’m not going to let somebody try an kill it to prove my manliness.  Assuming that I survive, of course, it would me nice to still be able to come away remembering how to do math, or even my kid’s name.

So no.  I’m not going to fight you.  I really don’t want to.  It’s not so much that I’m a yellow bellied chicken.  I just don’t feel like having my neurons torn apart to prove to you that I’m a man.

I’m writing this from the DMV in northern Alabama. I just moved from Nebraska to Alabama for work. I’m in the process of getting my new driver’s license.

When I moved to Nebraska, my previous ID was not Real ID compliant. Nebraska’s license is a Real ID approved state. It took my birth certificate, Social Security card, two forms of picture ID (including my old license ), and two proofs of residency to get it. Blood, urine, and stool samples were optional.

I’m applying for a Real ID compliant Alabama STAR license. Guess what? I need all the same paperwork and BS all over again. The one Real ID approved ID is not enough for a new Real ID approved ID. What is the point of a Federal standard if it is not useful in going state to state?

He’ll is other bureaucrats.

So why am I griping on a gun blog? Because I forsee this same BS being pulled if (and when) national concealed carry gets passed. Oh yeah, your state may meet some arbitrary national standard but god help you if you go to another state. Your beloved national standard CCW permit will be worth bupkis, and perhaps a trip to jail.

Yes, that is President Theodore Roosevelt standing behind a bull elephant he took on Safari.

I’m not a hunter.  My dad is, my sister is, I’m not.  I had, what you would call, a “bad hunting experience.”  My dad took me on a feral pig hunt on a sod farmer’s land in central Florida.  I gut shot a pig with a 7mm Rem Mag.  Anchored it on the spot, but the noise that pig let out, just squealing and squealing, until the farmer finished it off… I broke down and knew I’d never hunt again.

I still shoot.  Love to shoot.  Don’t hunt.  But I have nothing against hunting by other people.  My father and sister have been all over the world hunting together.

I’ve noticed that antis break down in to two groups when it comes to hunting.  There are those who mouth pieties about “not wanting to take away grandpa’s deer rifle” when talking about gun bans restrictions.  Then there are those like in the post below who come out foaming at the mouth against hunters.  Those who want to see hunting banned and hunters dead.

As a non-hunter, I wanted to take a moment and lay out the case for hunting.  Hunters are dollar for dollar the greatest force for environmental protection in America.  Sure, I’ll concede that hunters are motivated by self interest.  Hunters want more land to hunt on and more game to take.  But so what.  That’s capitalist economics for you, toots.  Birdwatchers don’t shell out like waterfowl hunters do.

There are more protected forests and marshlands today because of the Boone and Crockett Club, Ducks Unlimited, and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation than all the tree huggers and anti-gunners combined. Even the largest non-hunting wildlife conservation society in the world is a bake sale compared to the $1.6 BILLION hunters contribute to conservation, annually, through donations and purchase of tags and licenses.

Dear antis, you can hate hunters all you want, but there wouldn’t be nearly as much wilderness without them.  It is no coincidence that our most killingest president was also “the conservation president.”

P.S.  This doesn’t even touch the 2.8 million pounds of meat that hunters donate to feed the hungry every year.  Even the left leaning NY Times took note of hunter’s charity to the hungry.  When was the last time the CSGV fed the hungry?  Oh yeah, that’s right, your sugar daddy Bloomberg actually banned food donations to NYC homeless shelters because the food might be too high in salt and too low in fiber.  You know, the last thing starving people need is an unhealthy meal.

Yes, I used a click bait title, so sue me.

One of the recurring attacks/criticisms/insults levied against gun owners, especially concealed carrier permit holders, is that we (including the women) have small penises. In an attempt to feel better about ourselves, we carry a gun as a de facto prosthetic phallus, and if we were more secure in our manhood (including the women) we would not feel the need to carry a gun. This regular insult usually comes with a side order of other belittlement – that guns owners are fearful, cowardly, etc., which then comes back to us being phallicly insecure.

Well… rather than dispute the anti-gunners, I’m going to embrace my small penis (metaphorically speaking).

Classical art (Ancient Greece and Rome) found the the small penis to be an aesthetically pleasing. This was revitalized in Renaissance art, a prime example being Michelangelo’s David.

A large penis was considered grotesque and comical, a sign of barbarianism and being uncivilized. The Greek god Priapus is portrayed as having a large phallus. Priapus was thrown off of Mount Olympus by the other gods for his ugliness and foul-mindedness, and is often associated with rudeness and braying donkeys.

Now what does this have to gun ownership? One word: civilization.

Part of the Aristotelian idea of civilization was art (aesthetics), another was virtue. Classical philosophy was big on virtue. There are four classical Cardinal Virtues: Wisdom, Justice, Temperance, and Courage/Fortitude. This spawned the Roman ideals of virtue, which expanded on the Cardinal Virtues to include Virtus (manliness) and Pietas (duty to others), among others. Ancient cultures recognized that civilization could not exist without duty, justice, strength, and manliness.

Back 2007, MunchkinWrangler wrote a piece titled “The Gun is Civilization.” I invite you to read it. (Proper attribution here)

He makes a good point, but I feel compelled to add something that he implied but needs to be said overtly. A gun is civilization when in the hands of civilized people. Only a person with the virtues of restraint, justice, courage, and strength of character can wield a gun for good. We see far to much violence from people without virtue who wield a gun with malice.

Recently online, I have come across to articles from polar opposite sources, Slate and The Federalist, on the murder of Kevin Joseph Sutherland on a DC Subway in front of a group of bystanders who did nothing.

Call them beta males, call them sheeple, but what we saw was the result of a lack of virtue. Not one person had the courage or fortitude to due his duty to help his fellow man and a murder occurred. Barbarism won over civilization that day.

The laws of DC may have physically disarmed them but the culture emotionally disarmed them. Only cowards carry guns. Only the insecure feel the need to be armed. That’s what the CSGV tells us. But the unarmed, and presumably well endowed, men (and women) on those trains didn’t “man up” to helping one of their fellows. They bravely hid in the corner and averted their gaze.

On the other side of the country (metaphorically speaking), in the ignorant, uncultured, no-man’s land of Alabama, when a CCW permit holder sees the life of a store clerk being threatened by a criminal, he acts to save an innocent life.

And there you have it. Real cowardice vs. GSCV cowardice. Watch a man die vs. jump in and help.

If having a small penis (metaphorically speaking) is the price I pay for civilization, all accept that. Because the alternative is to be a braying jackass.