There was a bit of an incident at work a couple of nights ago. Right before start of the shift, I strolled over the coffee room/meet room for the usual pre-shift meeting and besides my fellow co-workers, I find one of the guys from the outgoing shift with some sort of small caliber rifle across his shoulders and behind his neck. I thought it was a very peculiar thing to see in a very much so Gun Free workplace but before my mouth could say something, Mr. Asshole Rifleman saw me and one-handed aimed the rifle to my midsection with his index finger inside the trigger guard.

All my politeness went out the window as I told him to stop aiming that fucking rifle at me. He laughed which is not the appropriate answer when one demands to follow the Four Rules. I sidestepped to the left and then took two quick steps forward getting in the inside radius of the rifle and the Asshole. Before  could control the weapon, Asshole moved it away from me to his left effectively sweeping three other coworkers. My hand suddenly landed on the muscle group right where the neck meets the shoulder and my thumb stabbed deep on the front and the rest of the fingers on the back. Asshole’s  reaction was finally the right one: he crouched and brought the muzzle of the rifle up aiming towards the ceiling. Still clutching the muscles and nerves of his shoulder, I took the opportunity to repeat my dislike at having a weapon aimed at me.

Now people, if you fuck up by the numbers, please do not try to come up with lame excuses to defend your stupidity, just shut up and take it like a somewhat metrosexual man. Asshole however apparently did not shared this strategy because he opened his mouth to say three idiotic things:

“But it is unloaded!”

“It is just an air rifle!”

“I own a real gun, I know what I am doing!”

I am sure you do not need to make great strides to figure out what replies I made and generously laced with profanities. But I did reinforced every reply with a quick increase of grip pressure to drive the points home. After what appeared to be a final understanding on his part that I was not kidding and I was royally pissed, I left the area.

Last night when I got to work, Asshole would not speak to me (at least I was expecting an apology) and his face reminded me of a 5 year old pouting after a well deserved behavior adjustment. I really don’t give to flying…..flocks of seagulls.

If we are lucky, he will have a Negligent Discharge and end up in a hospital somewhere. Worst case scenario, somebody will pay for his stupidity. His macho type will not admit the mistake nor will he seek training to correct his mishandling of weapons.

Freshly posted by a friend in Facebook.

Click on pic to enlarge

That is a Loaded Question in what’s called a Logical Fallacy. According to the ever-knowing Wikipedia it is defined as “A loaded question is a question which contains a controversial or unjustified assumption (e.g., a presumption of guilt).

Sometimes in our fight for Second Amendment Rights, the opposition will set up traps like this and we fall in them because we are still thinking this is a fair fight in all senses. Of course, the Antis do not believe in fair and we find ourselves trying to explain that we have never beaten our wives or significant others, end up appearing guilty or having the conversation drift away from where we want it to go.

The solution? Don’t play by their rules. While I was researching this logical fallacy, I read that the problem with this question is that it is a Yes or No answer with no way to win it. Says who? Why shall we restrain ourselves to a narrow parameter? Oh yes, fair fight….right.

So what we must do is break the shackle and turn the question or Loaded Question-type statement around against the questioner:

“Again, it was not beating, it was spanking between consenting adults and I was in the receiving end of it. And why are you so interested in my sexual life? Are you some kind of pervert? I thought we were here to discuss……”

Some weeks ago during one of those Linoge-Induced wars I seem to get involved in, the anti-du-jour went on a predictable rant against guns and finished his jack-jawing with “We must stop unrestricted guns!” I politely asked to define what was an “unrestricted gun” and silence ensued. Yes, we all “know” that he was supposed to mean unrestricted access to guns, but his use of a cute name and me asking for a definition of the term caught him with his pants down and left him in a silence. Somebody undecided or with no string convictions following the exchange might have thought “OK, so what is the definition of unrestricted gun and why does this guy does not answer?” It created a doubt and this doubt hopefully spread to all his previous statements.

The first time I saw this type of logical counter attacks was during a radio interview given by Tom Greshan who was told by a Liberal radio talk show host that she supported the banning of “Assault Weapons.” Very politely Mr. Gresham asked her to tell him what was an assault weapon and “hilarity ensued” to coin a phrase. First was a long silence (Dead Air in commercial radio parlance which is a big no-no) followed by the obligatory “er’s” and “umm’s” and an absolutely confused host. Greshan went for the kill, again, very politely: “How can you be against something you don’t know what it is?” The rest of the show went downhill from there with a very defensive host having to realize she was in the wrong.

Perhaps the most infamous example of this line of counter attack is Carolyn McCarthy “shoulder thing that goes up” video.

Now that hurts but it shows that many people, including the idiots that pass legislation do not have an idea of what they are talking about. But they are good at using “wordage” to evoke a negative feeling. At the last Squirrel Report, (which I missed, first time damn it)  Breda brought forward the idea that we in the gun culture have a fetish for our guns, yet we keep saying they are tools. Now, she says that was setting the rest of her co-hosts on the fallacy (She is Breda Fallacy) and none of them got the idea. When I heard the show later, I realized that Alan, Jay and Weer were trying to defend against the fallacy instead of setting aside. Why accept the word “fetish” with its negative connotation of sexual perversion? I mean, I expect that from Weer, but Alan and Jay are supposed to be the mature ones in the male side of the show. Yes, we like our guns and we “accessorize”, collect, admire handiwork, decorate, etc just like any other Joe & Jane do about their particular hobby. But sexual intercourse? Nah….

So, if somebody asks you why do we have a Gun Fetish, your answer should be alongside the following:

Hmmmm… steel leather, nylon straps, weird shaped plastic. I see how a twisted mind might get confused and take it to the fetish thing. Incidentally, I didn’t know you were into the whole leather and S&M lifestyle, whipping people and what nots. Not my thing but I have no problems if you like it. Knock yourself out!”

Remember, you are dealing with Liberals that claim to be so open-minded, you can actually see gray matter dripping off their ear lobes, few of them are capable of retort to a well placed counter attack that demands brain usage as they only run on slogans.

KILLING: The taking of a life.

HOMICIDE: The taking of a human life.

JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE: The killing without evil or criminal intent, for which there can be no blame.

MURDER: The crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethough.

I was reviewing my mail alerts that I had abandoned pretty much this week while engaged in other endeavors, when I bumped into an article by the San Francisco Chronicle announcing that Stand Your Ground Laws actually increase murders rates.

I was actually shocked. I mean just this week the FBI Unified Crime report came out for 2011 indicating that violent crime including murder has dropped for the fifth consecutive year. So, what the hell is going on here? The article is based on a study made by Texas A&M University titled : Does Strengthening Self-Defense Law Deter Crime Or Escalate Violence? Evidence From Castle Doctrine. The first problem right off the bat is the assumption that Stand Your ground was created to deter crime, nothing farther than the truth. SYG laws was conceived to allow law abiding citizens to defend themselves without having to attempt to engage in the dangerous practice of Duty to Retreat which is  the stupid concept that you can outrun a bullet fired by a criminal.

Next I get to read that Stand Your Ground is a creation of the State of Florida in 2005 which tells me that the “researchers” somehow missed the cases of Beard v. United States – 158 U.S. 550 (1895) and Brown v. United States, 256 U.S. 335 (1921) and which I previously posted in this post.

If you keep on reading the study, even though they make the distinction between justifiable homicide and murder, soon enough they either willfully or by stupidity, start mixing the first definition with the second. I gave up reading the rest of the “study” after that and I am laying my bets on the side of willful application of BS. I know that the quality of education in our universities has decreased, but this smells more like a political hatchet job than an “oopsie.”

What honor looks like: The flash mob at Gate 38 of Reagan National Airport | MullerOver.com.

Shortly before 9:30 over the loud speakers, a US Airways gate attendant announced that an Honor Flight of World War II veterans would be arriving momentarily and encouraged anyone passing by to help greet them.  Five or six people looked like they were officially part of the welcoming committee, and the rest of the people in the secure section of the airport were regular old travelers going somewhere.  Then I had a terrible thought.  What if these veterans came off the plane and just those five or six individuals were there to greet them.  I walked a gate over to help see the veterans out.

This capture from the video says it all for me: